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WHEN 

THE FIGHT BEGINS 


WHEN 

THE FIGHT BEGINS 


By HOLMAN DAY 7 

Author of 

“The Rider of the King Log,” 
“Clothes Make the Pirate,” etc., etc. 


When the fight begins within himself , 

A man's worth something .— Browning. 

Those who inflict must suffer, for they see 
The work of their own hearts , and this must be 
Our chastisement or recompense .— Shelley. 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

PUBLISHERS 






Copyright, 1925 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(Incorporated) t 

Second Printing, March, 1926 


* 



Printed in the United States of America 


THE MURRAY PRINTING COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 

THE BOSTON BOOKBINDINC COMPANY 
CAMBRIDGE, MASS. 



© Cl AS90257 




N 




CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 

I 

The Test of Love . 



PACK 

1 

II 

A Judge Defines Love . 



13 

III 

Reba and Mavis .... 



24 

IV 

Old Trask of the Double T . 



34 

V 

New Love and Old Wine 



45 

VI 

The Girl with a Plea . 



53 

VII 

The Twist Bit .... 



66 

VIII 

The New Mayor 



76 

IX 

At Home with the Trasks . 



82 

X 

A Specter from the North . 



92 

XI 

Why the Music Stopped 



102 

XII 

A Woman's Whim 



114 

XIII 

Ears and Eyes .... 



123 

XIV 

At the Bar of Justice . 



138 

XV 

The Verdict of the Jury 



145 

XVI 

The Verdict of the Husband 



149 

XVII 

One, as an Example . 



158 

XVIII 

As Others See Us! . 



165 

XIX 

On Angel Knob 



173 

XX 

Though the King Was Dead, 
Queen Lived .... 

THE 


185 

XXI 

On the Matter of Thieves . 

V 



191 





VI 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PACE 


XXII 

The Apparition on Bores tone 

. 204 

XXIII 

The Way of the Woods . 

. 214 

XXIV 

Two Alone on Borestone 

. 221 

XXV 

He Who Came in the Morning . 

. 229 

XXVI 

The Spark in the Tinder 

. 236 

XXVII 

The Law. 

. 243 

XXVIII 

The Magic of a Voice 

. 255 

XXIX 

With the Eyes of a Man 

. 266 

XXX 

The Revelation of a Dream . 

. 277 

XXXI 

The Man on the Broad Highway 

. 282 

XXXII 

The Pilgrims in the Dust . 

. 291 

XXXIII 

The Mystery of the Night . 

. 302 

XXXIV 

The Truth from the Eyes . 

. 313 

XXXV 

A Glance Beyond the Rim . 

. 329 




WHEN 

THE FIGHT BEGINS 






\ 






WHEN 

THE FIGHT BEGINS 


CHAPTER ONE 
The Test of Love 

URING the week of John Lang’s absence 
from the city, affairs for his attention had 
piled up. Clients had become aware of 
his unexpected return and had come 
crowding into his waiting room. However, 
at four o’clock that afternoon, he abruptly shut off 
conferences and ordered his secretary to turn away 
those who were still in line. He hastily dragged on his 
topcoat, took hat and stick and left his office suite by 
the private exit. He trotted down the stairs, avoiding 
chance meetings in the elevator. 

Opposite the towering office building was the mid- 
urban park of the metropolis, and he headed straight 
across, treading along the broad, gravelled path, taking 
the most direct route to the county buildings. Out¬ 
wardly, he was quite himself—the dominant John 
Lang, the doughty defender in the State’s most notable 
criminal cases, a particularly well recognized figure in 
the city’s life. Inwardly, he was conscious that he was 
not at all his usual self; he was ashamed of the quest 
which he had undertaken on uncontrollable impulse. 
He was ashamed, too, because this quest involved sen¬ 
timent. He had never before allowed that emotion 
to divert him from serious affairs. 

As he marched past them, men saluted him deferen- 
l 










2 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


daily. Women turned to give him an admiring survey 
after he had passed on. 

“He will be our next mayor,” was the gist of mascu¬ 
line comment by those on the inside of affairs as the 
situation was developing. “The office will be handed 
to him on a silver platter—like everything else that 
has come his way.” 

The women’s estimate took account of personality, 
not politics. First of all, his bachelorhood at thirty- 
five presented a problem for strictly feminine con¬ 
sideration. There were detractors, of course. Some 
women did not approve his bold features, almost 
heavy; and they found his eyes disconcerting under 
the out-thrust bristle of brows which met above his 
nose. On the other hand, his defenders found his 
facial aspect in complete harmony with his rugged 
physical architecture. 

All women were agreed on the interesting quality of 
one characteristic; it was revealed when Lang lifted 
his hat in respectful response to smiling greetings: a 
lock of white hair sprayed upward from the middle 
of his forehead, contrasting oddly with the rest of his 
shaggy mane of dead black. 

Women insisted on perceiving in that white lock the 
memento of some buried sorrow. For men it had an 
entirely different meaning, especially for prosecuting 
attorneys against whom John Lang battled in his role 
as the State’s most astute, most aggressive counsel for 
the defense in criminal cases. He had the habit of 
twisting that white lock into a veritable horn just be¬ 
fore he arose to attack the tender spots in the flanks 
of circumstantial evidence. 

As he swung along in the first shadows of the 
autumn’s late afternoon, he seemed to be exulting in 
his physical well-being and in the consciousness of 


THE TEST OF LOVE 


3 


fortune’s favor. His inner, secret humiliation was his 
own affair and he concealed it. He had stopped argu¬ 
ing with himself, however, and was going to the job, 
hateful as he found it. He did relish the nip of the 
frost in the air; he would have been glad if the snows 
of the north woods had swept far enough to the south 
to hide the sere raggedness of the park. He was 
freshly down from those woods, out of those snows 
where he had been satisfying his virile zest for muscle- 
wearying exertion. 

He had intended to take at least two weeks for his 
annual hunting trip, but he had cut in half the vacation 
to which he had looked forward all the year. Now he 
was rasped by the wire edge of resentment though he 
did not know whether to blame himself or others. 

He had impressed upon Reba Donworth that he 
would be away from the city for two weeks. To fortify 
his spirit in what he was now doing he tried to con¬ 
vince himself that she was in fault, provided gossip, 
and his own suspicions were well founded. 

In the past he had been punctilious in his methods 
of meeting Reba. There had been none of the betray¬ 
ing, uncalculating, obvious fervor of a lover and none 
of his friends had construed his attentions as love 
making. He always apprised her by telephone of his 
intention to call at her home of an evening. His 
reserved delicacy in the matter of springing surprises 
squeezed all the spontaneity out of his affair with the 
girl, such as it was. Undoubtedly, if she were asked 
bluntly what were John Lang’s intentions, Reba would 
have been unable to tag them accurately. 

As a lawyer, he had occasion to drop into the office 
of the clerk of courts where she was first assistant. 

When he walked up the court house steps this after¬ 
noon he felt helplessly incapable of assuming the mask 


4 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


of an offhand caller attending to business. His con¬ 
science was working. Straightforwardness was a prin¬ 
ciple of action with him. His sense of shame told him 
he had come sneaking on her—a week ahead of the 
time he had set. He was demeaning himself, as if he 
had come to play a game of peek-a-boo, squawking at 
her childishly. He resented his actions and his state 
of mind; they were something new and foreign in the 
nature of John Lang, whose custom it was to go boldly 
and serenely straight at any objective. 

Among the other apothegms which Lang, keen law¬ 
yer, had hammered out on the anvil of court experience 
was this: “Let the mouth speak the story; but let the 
eyes tell the truth.” 

Lang wrathfully beat his cane against his leg as he 
walked down the corridor; whether to drive himself 
along to the job or to flog himself as a fool and a spy 
he did not bother to consider. 

His chief thought was on what he might surprise in 
her eyes. 

Reba rose from her desk when he called to her over 
the rail barrier. She came to him without haste or 
visible evidence of surprise, her hand outstretched. 
Avidly Lang sought in her eyes; they were clear pools 
of composure. Her tone was placidly noncommittal 
when she answered his first question. 

“Why, no!” she told him. “You haven’t surprised 
me, John! I’ve been thinking the politicians wouldn’t 
allow you to stay two weeks at this time.” 

His bristle of brows crawled down in a scowl. “I 
don’t intend to take the nomination; I’ve come back 
to tell them so.” 

“Don’t try to make out that you’re not human, 
John!” She laughed at him, frankly, disconcertingly. 

Walking across the park he had come to realize with 


THE TEST OF LOVE 


5 


chagrin how human he was—human in a cheap and 
childish way! 

All at once, in his new temper, he found himself 
demanding something from her in the way of love 
demonstration although in the past he had never tried 
to evoke it. Nor had he given her any reason to think 
that he was seeking from her anything except the 
unsexed friendliness based on office association and 
casual calls on her at her home. 

Naturally he did not expect that she would display 
an inclination to fall into his arms, there in a public 
office! But her eyes were too serene! 

“May I walk home with you?” he blurted abruptly. 
His glance at the clock preceded the query. 

“But it’s nearly an hour before the office closing 
time! ” she protested. “Come and see us, some evening 
soon! That will be better. Mother wants to know 
the latest about politics.” 

He no longer was satisfied with this mere friendli¬ 
ness, so matter-of-fact, so casually imperturbable. He 
had come freshly from out of the forest. The woods, 
like the sea, develop in a man hunger for love of 
woman. In his case this new yearning for her was 
wire-edged by a growing fear. Devilish gossip had 
given her a lover. 

He stared hard at her. In the past her straightfor¬ 
ward candor had been for him her chief charm. She 
was tall above the average, with the contours of hale 
and vigorous youth; her handclasp was almost mascu¬ 
line. All these qualities, with none of the tricks of 
mere femininity, had attracted him. 

Gossip had now hinted at some sort of an attach¬ 
ment between her and young Trask—the nephew, 
namesake and heir of Serenus Skidmore Trask, baron 
of timberlands. Lang, attorney for the elder Trask, 


6 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


could not remember how many vulgar harpies he had 
bought off, settling cases to clear the little bounder on 
whom his bachelor uncle had enjoined idleness as part 
of a plan to “make a gentleman of him.” 

“Skiddy” Trask—tolerated by Reba Donworth, with 
the blood of old General Donworth in her! Surely 
she must have inherited the caste and spirit of her 
father, even if she and the widow received nothing 
else! Lang vigorously shook his head, busy with his 
thoughts of negation. 

“Do you mean you will not call?” questioned Reba, 
awaking him from his ponderings. 

“No—no! Surely I’ll come! Grateful for the invi¬ 
tation!” He started away, fearing to trust himself 
further. But he turned hastily back to her. 

He refused to call his new feeling jealousy, though 
he was conscious of something tearing wickedly at 
him within. He knew he was growing bitter. No 
longer did he admire her composure; it was now a 
perfectly damnable aggravation. He wanted to grasp 
the round, firm neck and beat his palm against her 
cheek and command her to come out with all the 
truth. He satisfied the animal impulse by reaching out 
with an abrupt motion, giving her cheek a sort of love 
pat. 

She flushed and backed away from the rail, look¬ 
ing around in sudden trepidation, fearing lest his act 
had been observed by others in a public office. 

In his mood he did not view her retreat as a proper 
precaution in that place; he was conscious of the 
same rancor which would have been developed if he 
had detected her in unmistakable aversion for his per¬ 
sonality. He did not solicit her pardon. His temper 
of the moment was too rudely vicious to permit polite¬ 
ness. He went out into the dusk; he was settled into 


THE TEST OF LOVE 


7 


the sullen determination to find out for himself how 
much of truth there was in gossip. 

Lang threw his scruples to the wind. The conscious¬ 
ness of doing so for the sake of a woman—for what 
was called love—torched his temper still more. He 
made up his mind to place Reba under espionage—to 
do for himself the same kind of sneaking work which 
paid agents did in criminal cases—agents whom he 
excoriated in court. He knew Reba’s orbit well 
enough. At five-thirty each day she left the office and, 
rain or shine, walked briskly home by way of the 
boulevard and the park. No longer did John Lang 
march with head up and shoulders swinging. He stole 
stealthily by unfrequented ways. 

He hastened to post himself in the park where he 
could observe Reba’s usual route from her office, con¬ 
cealing himself behind a boxed-in fountain. 

The girl’s preoccupation helped his precautions when 
she appeared and after he had started to trail her. And 
the shadows were deep except where the park’s lights 
shone in the early twilight. A thickset hedge shielded 
the route he chose—a narrow path paralleling the 
avenue along which she was walking. 

When he saw Trask waiting for her—Trask too 
much taken up with adoring contemplation to see 
aught else than the girl who was approaching—Lang 
made a quick detour and posted himself behind the 
other man. There was a spruce bough shelter for 
tender shrubbery and it served excellently. Trask was 
waiting in the radiance cast by a pole light. 

The lawyer was able to look directly into Reba’s 
eyes, when she came close to Trask, and he recognized 
instantly what he saw in those eyes. For himself, what 
he had found previously in Reba’s gaze had been only 
the pellucid candor which pleased him. But he had 


8 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


never seen this veiled softness with which she was 
regarding young Trask. 

It was confession, compliance, surrender. Mere 
physical surrender of herself, an embrace, a kiss, would 
not have stirred Lang so profoundly as that visual 
caress in the uplifted eyes. He knew what it meant in 
the case of a woman. He was not pausing to diagnose 
his emotions—to determine what was impulse of love 
and what was rage at being robbed of a prize which 
catered to his personal pride and fed his passion for 
possession. He did not pause to look longer. 

“Just a minute!” He called harshly and he followed 
his words, striding close to them. He jabbed his cane 
past Trask’s face in mute command for that person 
to be off. 

“Seeing you’re here, we may as well settle it,” blus¬ 
tered the young man, desperately courageous. 

Lang, too, felt his own spurring emotion in the pres¬ 
ence of the female—the brutal urge of the ownership 
he was now at last claiming. He was clinging to that 
ownership. He declared it, disregarding the lack of 
her sanction of any such pact. “Do I need to remind 
you that this young lady and myself are engaged to be 
married? Away with you!” 

“I won’t go!” 

The girl put one hand against the cane when it came 
back as if Lang were poising it for a blow. With the 
other hand she waved dismissal to Trask, and he 
turned and went away obediently. It was complete 
and instant subservience to her wish and she was 
unable to keep her feminine satisfaction out of her 
expression when she turned to Lang. 

Just then a woman passed with a fuzzy dog trotting 
obediently at the end of a leash. Lang pointed his 
cane in the direction of the retreating woman, dog 


THE TEST OF LOVE 


9 


and Trask. “Oh, it’s what they want in these days— 
ballots instead of babies—lap dogs in lieu of real, he 
men!” 

“Don’t you want to leave it just as it is?” she 
pleaded. “I’m going to find it hard to explain to you. 
You’re the kind who won’t understand very easily.” 

“I wouldn’t say a word if you had gone over to a 
real man. But when you drop me and take up with 
a chow pup, I must be in a bad way without knowing 
it. I demand information.” 

“I may be the one who’s in a bad way,” she declared 
earnestly. “Perhaps you should seek and find the 
right woman to mate with the real man, as you like to 
call yourself.” 

He caught her up on the note of bitterness which 
he detected. “Well, am I not the real man?” 

“I suppose so, seeing you are so positive on that 
matter as well as on others where you claim to know 
it all.” 

“Reba, what has come over you?” 

“Call it rebellion against a real man, if you like,” 
she replied listlessly. “I don’t know. I’m tired try¬ 
ing to figure it out. Perhaps the times are making 
the women into something they ought not to be, as part 
of the general punishment the human race is getting. 
On the other hand, perhaps the ideal life for women 
is to drudge for the household boss, with a dole of 
pocket money which he counts down with a sigh or 
scowl.” 

“You know I’m not that sort, Reba. Tell me-” 

“John, I don’t want to tell you what you are. You 
wouldn’t believe it. As for myself, I have worked all 
my life. Now I want to play. Skiddy Trask knows 
how to play.” 

“Do you think I’d make you work?” 



10 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“But you don’t know how to play!” She almost 
wailed her complaint. “One can’t learn how—one 
must just feel that way. It spoils it all to be obliged 
to argue about every hop, skip and giggle of life to 
prove it isn’t silly business. You look at me as if I 
had gone out of my senses. Maybe I have, but I’m 
only a girl who wants to play, after all the work. 
Skiddy Trask has nothing to do except play.” 

Lang gritted his teeth. “I saw the look you gave 
him a few minutes ago.” 

“I wasn’t conscious there was anything special in 
my look.” He opened his mouth—but he promptly 
closed it. Her unconsciousness of having made a 
revelation stopped all argument on the matter. 

“I don’t understand the kind of looks you are giving 
me,” she said. “But I suppose it’s all because of 
my weak folly. You’re calling it by that name—and 
I’ll agree. So much for that! You don’t want a fool 
for a wife.” She was pleading wistfully. “Skiddy 
will be a fool along with me—hop, skip and dance and 
giggle.” 

“Don’t try to make a fool of me any longer,” he 
commanded irefully. “You’re secretly a domineering 
sort. You want a man who will kowtow. You’ve 
probably been reading this sentiment slop on how to 
be lovers though married, and have picked a mushy, 
love-cracked fool who’ll attend to it as his regular 
business instead of going to an office every day and 
making something of himself.” 

“Perhaps it’s that way,” she said resignedly. “But 
I do value your good opinion of me, John, as you 
have expressed it in the past. I don’t want you to 
think the fault is all mine. I don’t want anything to 
happen to you through me to spoil your good opinion 
of yourself.” 


THE TEST OF LOVE 


11 


“What about this thing that’s happening?” 

“My confession of my frivolous longings must have 
cured you in regard to me.” 

“I’ll say it ought to. But-” he narrowed his 

eyes and surveyed her, from the brown hair under 
her toque down over her shapeliness to the very toes 
of her shoes—“I am not cured. I’m not going to give 
you up.” 

“I have something to say for myself on that point, 
John.” 

“Well, let’s narrow my declaration for the present. 
I’ll not give you up to Skiddy Trask. If it were 
a case in which I would not be insulted by your 
choice-” 

“There speaks your selfish vanity.” 

“I won’t allow you to arraign my honest consider¬ 
ation for you, Reba,” he retorted with heat. “I won’t 
permit you to be soiled and debased by what that 
poisoned renegade calls love.” 

“I’ll confess openly I want a gay life and travel and 
clothes and not much of anything except mere fun to 
think about,” she cried with a sort of desperate 
urgency. “You ought to despise me for admitting it. 
Please do. I want Skiddy Trask for a husband.” 

“There’s something the matter with you. I’ll cure 
it,” he declared grimly. 

“I am breaking our engagement, as you have called 
it, at this moment—though I must confess that I didn’t 
know there was an engagement.” 

“The matter is not so easily disposed of, Reba. 
You listen to me! Before God, I swear you shall not 
marry Skiddy Trask. I won’t suffer hell’s torments 
thinking of you in his possession. I take my stand in 
regard to that one man. If you persist, it’s going to be 
bad—bad! Now, may I walk along with you?” 




12 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“I prefer to go alone.” 

“Very well, Reba. I have other matters to attend 
to, anyway.” He lifted his hat. “This has been an 
unpleasant topic. Let’s forget it. I’ll not refer to it 
again.” 

He spoke mildly and smiled. After he had started 
away he turned and smiled again, but she did not seem 
to be reassured by that smile. 


CHAPTER TWO 

A Judge Defines Love 

ANG left the park and strode on his way 
to the Talisman Club, seeking its exclu¬ 
siveness as his haven. His progress 
along the street at that juncture was 
torture for him. He tried to smile at 
those who greeted him, but he accomplished only a 
series of grimaces. He was thankful when the door 
of the club clicked shut behind him. 

He snapped back into something like his normal self 
when venerable Judge Anderson struggled out of his 
deep chair in the lounge, both hands out in cordial 
welcome. “Heard you were back from the woods, 
boy! The campaign needs you.” 

“I don’t intend to take the nomination, sir!” 

Judge Anderson was unruffled. “Oh, yes, you will! 
You are solidly conservative, a director in two banks, 
and we don’t propose to have Demagogue MacMurray 
win out and have the spending of the money in that 
million-dollar condemnation of buildings for the new 
traffic avenue. If there isn’t confidence in the next 
mayor, may God help the city’s bonds—the banks 
won’t!” 

“I hate the pawing, gripping hands! I won’t be 
like the knob on a post-office door!” 

The judge’s wrinkled face was creased into a smile 
of mock compassion. He was hampered by no repres¬ 
sions in his dealings with John Lang. John had been 
the judge’s protege ever since the death of the young 
man’s father; Cyrus Lang and Anderson had been 
associate justices of the State’s supreme bench. 

13 











14 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“John, old Doc Anson was psycho-analyzing you 
here in the club the other night, taking advantage of 
your trip to the woods, so you couldn’t eavesdrop. So 
I eavesdropped for you, as a loving mentor should. 
Doc says you’re as selfish as hell!” 

Flame mounted in Lang’s face. His scowl was por¬ 
tentous. 

“Oh, come along upstairs and dine with me, young¬ 
ster. Probably Anson was half right. It’s a good thing 
for you to have his expert opinion—and without a 
fee. You can take thought and correct your nature.” 
He pushed Lang along ahead. 

“But this politics thing is driving me mad, Judge!” 

“Then we’ll immediately get as far away from poli¬ 
tics as we can, my boy! In our talk at dinner, I 
mean!” 

When they were seated privately in a corner of the 
club dining room Judge Anderson, still smiling, said, 
“We’ll let the politics rest with this one statement 
from me: you’re to be our next mayor. You have been 
drafted for the financial good of your city. You’re a 
fighter and can stand up against the grafters. Your 
persecution by the admiring public is already sig¬ 
nificant of your coming success. Well, then! To 
get to another and a pleasing topic! The mayor of 
this city ought to have a wife. That fact gives me a 
good excuse to ask what I’ve wanted to ask before¬ 
times. Why don’t you get married, John?” 

That was truly a leap to another extreme in the 
way of a topic! Lang was usually ready for the 
judge, who delighted in jumping his intimates by 
such bombshells in conversation. On this occasion 
the young man was tongue-tied. 

“For instance, there’s Minna Kennedy, my ward!” 
pursued the other. “A half million goes with her, 


A JUDGE DEFINES LOVE 


15 


John! I’m revealing a secret of my trust, to be sure, 
but this is a way to make her happy. She likes you!” 

Lang was able to reply then; he was defending a 
principle which he had adopted. “You oblige me to 
say something, sir! I have promised myself most 
solemnly never to marry a woman who has money. 
I have been obliged to listen to too many dreadful 
stories in my law practice. So have you, Judge Ander¬ 
son! Twits, troubles, and jealousies! If I marry, it 
will be a girl who must depend wholly on my pocket- 
book.” 

“Making sure of rule and domination, eh?” 

He apologized when Lang flushed. “Oh, I don’t 
agree wholly with Anson about you, John. I’m joking 
rather roughly. I see your point—I have listened to 
the same kind of stories. I reckon parsons are the 
only real optimists in regard to matrimony. They are 
in on the gay launching. The lawyer later views the 
wreck. But are you so much of a pessimist you don’t 
intend to get married?” 

Then Lang blurted an admission. He had half- 
mockingly threatened Reba to clinch matters by an 
announcement. Now, harried by his doubts, he 
wanted to put himself on record, at any rate. 

“I’ll confess I’m very much interested in Reba Don- 
worth—you know her, of course!” 

“Why, John, I make errands for myself in her office 
just to have a peep at that fine young woman. Dis¬ 
tinguished ancestry! All noble qualities of self- 
reliance! Not a silly notion in her, is there?” 

“I’m sure there’s not one!” 

“When? Soon?” 

“We haven’t decided definitely.” The afterthought 
which followed the admission rebuked Lang’s sense of 
delicacy. But he had been impelled to seek anxiously 


16 WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 

confirmation of his judgment from one in whom he 
trusted. 

“In these safe days of rectitude—in public, at least, 
we cannot pledge in anything but this,” smiled the 
justice, raising his glass of water. “But here’s my 
earnest hope for all happiness, John!” 

The young man returned his thanks composedly, 
showing no trace of love’s enthusiasm. Judge Ander¬ 
son surveyed this matter-of-fact placidity with an 
interest which was somewhat quizzical and he seemed 
about to comment in a jocose spirit but held his peace. 
Then his countenance softened into a reminiscent 
smile. 

“I suppose there’s just as much love in the world 
as ever, John—unselfish love, uncalculating love. But 
when I look on the young folks these days I wonder, 
sometimes! Probably I’m not as good a judge of 
modern love as I am of equity law. 

“I married very young, John. Borrowed money to 
take the honeymoon trip. Eliza did scold me for that! 
But I insisted to her we could have a honeymoon only 
once. I was a bit wrong—the honeymoon has lasted 
all these years. I would not be maundering along on 
the subject if I did not feel as if you’re now in a 
mood to understand what I’m talking about. A man 
does know when he’s really in love. It has come to 
you late—but it’s a great awakening, isn’t it? You 
haven’t been realizing there is any such wonderful 
thing in the world, till it comes!” 

Lang was woefully aware that he was not follow¬ 
ing the topic with real clarity of understanding. 

The old man’s eyes brimmed with tears, his voice 
trembled. “Sometimes it just bursts on a chap! But 
more often, I think, it springs from a true man’s 
innate desire to protect. All the race of women appeals 


A JUDGE DEFINES LOVE 


17 


to his chivalry. Then he singles out one. Not merely 
to possess—that isn’t love. To protect—that’s love. 
Of course you know what the feeling is! ” 

Lang, puzzling over the matter, knew he had never 
been conscious of the presumption of desiring to pro¬ 
tect Reba, except to interfere in the case of Skiddy 
Trask. It did seem like presumption in her self- 
sufficient case. 

“I know what I am talking about,” insisted the 
justice. “I’ve had a good many years to test out the 
thing in my own case.” 

If Judge Anderson, to whom men ascribed all quali¬ 
ties of discernment and ability to value, did know, 
as he seemed to know, what he was talking about, 
what then was the matter with the love of John Lang 
for Reba Donworth? Lang gave quick, alarmed 
thought to the subject. Then he put it away from 
himself, declining to consider it seriously as a problem. 
He had said he loved Reba; when he said a thing he 
meant it. There was no room for argument at that 
stage. His natural dogmatism asserted itself in this 
affair. 

“You are fortunate at last, John!” Judge Anderson 
rose as he spoke. “Many go through life and never 
wake up to know what love is! ” 

The young man had an opportunity to ponder, fol¬ 
lowing his old friend down to the lounge, and he was 
more than ever disquieted. What was this quality in 
him which Doctor Anson claimed to be able to diag¬ 
nose? Was it selfishness which was keeping him from 
perception and participation where the finer qualities 
of human relationship were concerned? He was not 
complacently the satisfied lover at that time, and he 
knew it. 

He saw Skiddy Trask in the lounge and fatuously 


18 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


hung the blame for his muddled ideas upon that insig¬ 
nificant thorn in his affairs. And he found his unrea¬ 
soning anger springing from doubts of which he was 
ashamed. 

He swung abruptly from the judge and other mem¬ 
bers who formed a group. He went to his favorite 
rocker in a corner of the lounge; his isolation was 
always respected when he sat in that chair and slowly 
clapped palm upon a nested fist, deep in cogitation. 

In another corner of the lounge, alone because 
nobody seemed to care for such companionship, sat 
young Trask, a member who did not tally in the Talis¬ 
man’s exclusiveness; he was merely tolerated. 

Hoping that the environment and association with 
men of standing would cure certain developing ten¬ 
dencies in his heir, Uncle Serenus had turned the 
trick of Skiddy’s admission by donating a new wing 
which housed squash and tennis courts. Larry Devon, 
the Talisman satirist, averred that the club paid a 
big price for the wing. Skiddy never seemed to be at 
ease in the club. But he was obliged by his uncle to 
live there after Serenus had yanked the young rois¬ 
terer out of bachelor quarters which the old woods 
baron had characterized with profane and vulgar 
bluntness. 

This evening Skiddy seemed both fascinated and 
frightened, looking across the room toward Lang. 
Every now and then he ground the coal of a cigarette 
in the tray and hitched forward in his chair as if he 
had finally mustered the courage to act. But after 
each false start he slumped back and lighted another 
cigarette. Finally, Skiddy was helped by the ogre 
himself. Lang caught the young fellow’s eye without 
difficulty. Skiddy obeyed an uplifted finger and hur¬ 
ried across the room; the monitory finger pointed to a 


A JUDGE DEFINES LOVE 


19 


chair close beside the rocker, and Skiddy took his seat. 

“I’ll do the talking,” said Lang, “because I’ve given 
the matter careful thought and thinking is entirely out 
of your line.” 

The other gulped, trying to cork down speech. 

“We’re not going into any discussion of selfishness 
or generosity or love or sacrifice,” pursued Lang. “I’m 
not going to argue with you. When I argue cases in 
court my strong point is, first of all, peremptorily 
challenging prejudiced jurors. They must step down! 

“I’m going to tell you something, Trask, and I ask 
you to look straight into my eyes while I say it—and 
see whether you think I mean what I say. So long 
as I draw the breath of life, you never shall have Reba 
Donworth as your wife. You have plenty of others to 
choose from—as you have been choosing in the past.” 

Lang, speaking in low tones, was exhibiting all the 
tenseness of a challenger who expected a comeback 
and was prepared to meet it. 

“I wonder if you won’t let me say just a word,” 
Skiddy appealed, wistfully, bashfully. “It may give 
you what you lawyers call new evidence.” 

“I never exclude real evidence. Go ahead!” 

“You know what I have been. You’ve had a chance 
to be in on every slip I have made. It’s hard for you 
to believe in me, I knew. Perhaps I can’t cash in on 
my word of honor with you.” 

There was no softening indication in Lang’s eyes 
that the word of honor had value. 

“I expected you’d feel this way.” Trask was even 
more contritely humble. “I deserve it. But I’m going 
to swear by the memory of two good folks who are 
dead—my mother and my father! I have never been 
serious enough before in my life to take such an oath 
to bind anything.” 


20 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Lang nodded, but his countenance was noncom¬ 
mittal. 

“I love Reba in the right way. I swear to it. And 
I swear if I have her for my wife I can go straight. 
I haven’t been arguing with myself about that—I know 
it in here!” He pounded his fist on his breast. “It 
comes to a man after a time. She feels it just as I 
do. And that’s why she is being noble in this thing 
—to make a man of me.” 

“She told me,” Lang drawled, “that she’s out for a 
good time from now on, and thinks you’re able to give 
her one.” 

“She said it because she thinks you’d make fun of 
her for marrying me to reform me.” 

“You show an intimate knowledge of her thoughts 
on the subject,” said Lang, his eyes glittering; he was 
remembering the especial intimacy of the revealing 
look he had detected in the park. 

“Perhaps she and I are only poor fools for feeling 
the way we do. But we do feel it, and it can’t be 
explained to cold-blooded folks. It’s love—and out¬ 
siders always make fun of real love. 

“I don’t know what to say,” he went on helplessly, 
“only this: If you don’t let me marry her you’re taking 
away my life chance to be a good man. I can’t be a 
smart man, like you and the others. Uncle Serenus 
has spoiled me for that! He wouldn’t let me make 
something of myself in business, or anything. But I 
can be a good man with Reba, from now on. For 
God’s sake, John Lang, give me my chance.” 

It was a wail. 

“Lower your voice,” snapped the lawyer. But in 
spite of the harshness of his tone his expression re¬ 
vealed that the pitiful plea was attacking his jealous 
and bitter resolution. “And stop right there and let 


A JUDGE DEFINES LOVE 


21 


me think. Don’t look at me! With that hound-dog 
face of yours, I don’t know whether to kick you or 
to be sorry for you.” 

To make sure he would not be troubled by the woe¬ 
begone countenance, he swung in his chair and turned 
his back on Trask. In the silence which followed, 
Lang was taking counsel with himself, so he assured 
his soul. He found he was dealing with evidence he 
could not weigh with any surety. If Reba Donworth 
wanted to marry Trask to reform him, it was only that 
usual, threadbare, commonplace folly which Lang’s 
cynicism rejected. 

If she really wanted idle pleasure with an abject 
slave for a husband, she was heading toward ruin. 
That sort of a woman would not be able to reform 
any weak man. He wondered how much of falsehood 
there was in her declaration on this point, in her 
feminine desire to hide from Lang the trail of a real 
love, in order to save the feelings of a rejected lover. 

And at that point in his ponderings he found him¬ 
self torn by a strange, ugly, animal determination to 
have her for himself! His imagination painted her in 

the arms of another, with that upward look- A 

club attendant was obliged to tap him, on the shoulder 
in order to bring him back to the realities. “You are 
wanted on the telephone, sir! The gentleman says the 
call is important.” 

Lang felt relief. He was conscious that he was 
ready to whirl in his chair and grab Trask by the 
throat and wring out of him a pledge to let the girl 
alone. Without apology to the young man, Lang hur¬ 
ried to the telephone. 

“This is Serenus Skidmore Trask speaking,” he was 
informed by a voice, sonorously important; it rolled 
the name with a suggestion of admiration for it. 



22 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“Lang, please come out to my house this evening. I 
want to consult you, as my attorney.” 

“Can the matter be postponed, Mr. Trask?” 

“I don’t want to postpone it. Why can’t you 
come?” It was imperious demand. 

“I have an engagement at eight.” Lang had made 
up his mind to go to Reba; he would hammer this 
matter while it was hot! 

“For how long?” 

Lang hesitated. Under the peculiar circumstances 
he was not prepared to say how long he would remain 
with Reba. 

“Keep your appointment, whatever it may be, and 
come as soon as possible after it. No, you’ll not be 
keeping me up, Lang! I shan’t be able to sleep, any¬ 
way, until the matter has been attended to.” Trask 
spoke with the manner of one who expected to be 
obeyed when his commands had been given; he clicked 
back the receiver without waiting for Lang to assent. 

The lawyer shoved his hands into his trousers pock¬ 
ets and returned slowly to the lounge. He faced the 
dumbly appealing young man, and stood with legs 
apart, hands still in his pockets. “You’ll have to be 
contented with what you have—idleness, money you 
haven’t earned and the sort of girls on your level; 
you can’t add Reba Donworth to your gallery. Keep 
away from her or I’ll make you sorry.” 

There was no compromise in the countenance into 
which young Trask stared, looking for some hope. He 
came slowly to his feet and once more Lang braced 
himself. 

But there was no belligerency in the other. “You’re 
the one who’ll be sorry.” He whimpered the predic¬ 
tion. Weak lamentation often has the effect of de¬ 
veloping more rancor in some natures. 


A JUDGE DEFINES LOVE 


23 


“I really would be sorry if I let fool sentiment ruin 
a girl like Reba,” growled Lang. “Don’t make any 
threats to me. You can’t carry them out!” 

“You don’t know yet what I can do.” 

“There’s one thing you can do, if you don’t mind 
your eye! You can get me into a state of mind where 
I’ll put you on to the rocks, financially, as far as your 
allowance is concerned. Your uncle takes a lot of 
stock in what I tell him!” Lang’s anger was carrying 
him far and he realized it with a touch of shame, for 
the young man at that moment seemed more than ever 
a puny antagonist. 

The lawyer turned and walked away. When he was 
aware that Trask was following he turned and grasped 
the flaccid arm of the idler. “Not only do I order you 
to keep away from her—you keep away from me, as 
well. What you said a little while ago is pure folly. 
However, if there comes a time when you really have 
something important to say to me, come and say it, 
like a man.” 

Trask showed fire. “There’s coming a time, damn 
you, and I’ll say it!” 


CHAPTER THREE 
Reba and Mavis 



RIOR to this evening, John Lang’s calls 
upon Reba and her mother had been 
entirely without formality, either in man¬ 
ner or apparel. He had always carried 
along his pipe, this being by the mother’s 
insistence; the pipe’s fragrance brought back fond 
memories of her husband, she said, and she seemed to 
find in the blue smoke an aura of past happiness. 

Was Reba rebelling against his careless, too com¬ 
placent placidity? Queerly enough the idea hit him a 
moment after the temperamental Skiddy’s half hysteri¬ 
cal outburst. 

Young Trask, confronting the declared tyrant, was 
plainly divided between a determination to defy and 
an impulse to duck; Lang’s arm had jerked upward in 
instinctive ire. But the arm was lowered immediately 
and Lang’s brow was corrugated in thought instead of 
in wrath. He surveyed Skiddy’s smart evening garb 
appraisingly; the young whelp’s smooth exterior was 
certainly attractive, no matter how disheveled were his 
inner qualities, as Lang knew them in his capacity 
of confidential counsel! 

Reba’s confession, if she were telling the truth, 
indicated that she was not looking forward with rap¬ 
ture to an unending succession, after marriage, of 
the sort of evenings Lang had been contentedly enjoy¬ 
ing with her before marriage. He was now willing to 
admit that even such a steady-going young woman as 
she had seemed to be in times past undoubtedly had 
24 










REBA AND MAVIS 


25 


her moments of flareback to the elemental, feminine 
zest for novelty and thrills. 

But to throw over a man like John Lang for—well, 
a Skiddy Trask! 

The girl must be afflicted with temporary neurosis 
and should be saved from the folly of action at such a 
time, so Lang reflected loftily. At this moment he 
would not admit that there was any selfishness in 
keeping her away from Skiddy Trask. 

“Get out of my sight!” he warned the young fellow. 

Lang sauntered behind Trask when the latter passed 
out into the lobby. It looked like implicit obedience 
because Skiddy secured his topcoat and hat at the 
cloak room counter and hastened out of the club. 

Pondering upon another method of procedure with 
Reba, Lang went up to his apartments in the club 
house and dressed with the care he would have shown 
in attiring himself for a public function. He walked 
leisurely to the apartment house where the Donworths 
were quartered in a modest flat. On his way he won¬ 
dered whether young Trask would have the effrontery 
to go again to Reba after what Lang had said! 

Once more he found himself acting the part of a 
spy seeking to surprise evidence, and fresh shame 
nagged him. After he had pushed the button in the 
vestibule of the apartment house he did not take down 
the telephone in order to announce himself. Some time 
elapsed before the latch clicked, admitting him. He 
walked slowly up the stairs instead of ascending by 
the elevator. This ruse, as he expected, brought Reba 
out into the corridor to investigate the caller’s delay 
in making an appearance. When he confronted her, 
the girl’s discomposure under his stare was markedly 
noticeable. 

“I hope I’m not intruding, Reba!” 


26 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


But his calmness, with its forced quality, disquieted 
her; she stammered when she assured him that he was 
welcome. “As you always are!” she added placat- 
ingly. Instantly his mask of composure was whisked 
from him. He had manoeuvred for this situation which 
enabled him to meet her away from the presence of 
her mother. He gathered her to him in a violent 
embrace and kissed her repeatedly. His ardor had a 
touch of ferocity in it; when he held her in his arms 
he fell to thinking that she wished to give those lips 
to another man. 

She set her palms against his breast and strove to 
break from his embrace; her amazement was tinged 
with a bit of terror. 

“It’s going to be different from now on!” he mut¬ 
tered, his lips close to hers. “I know at last what you 
have missed in me. But I love you! I’m going to 
make you love mel” 

While she struggled he held her to him; her physical 
resistance, now pointing up her previous mental rebel¬ 
liousness, gave him something tangible to grapple with 
and conquer. But when she became passive he imme¬ 
diately released her. 

She walked ahead of him into the hallway of the 
flat. There he hurriedly took her into his arms again; 
he seemed to feel as if a second demonstration of 
ardent passion might prove the authentic nature of 
the first essay in his new role. When he crushed her 
to him, her head against his shoulder, he saw her 
face in a double reflection in the hall mirrors. Her 
countenance expressed cold resignation as if she were 
enduring and politely humoring a strange freak. Again 
he loosed his clasp, his transports chilled, his resent¬ 
ment hot. He started to voice his protests but stopped 
in the middle of a sentence. 


REBA AND MAVIS 


27 


Somebody was singing; his sudden interest was 
potent enough to distract his attention even from Reba 
at that juncture of tense emotions. “Gods!” he mut¬ 
tered. “What a voice! Who is she?” 

“A girl who has taken a room with the Stewarts on 
this floor. She has come here to study music. Some¬ 
body from the Canadian country, so Mrs. Stewart told 
Mother.” 

He stood in his tracks, thrilled by the voice, till 
the song was finished. 

“I’ve never supposed I’d be of a mind to divide my 
allegiance, especially when I have you standing before 
my eyes,” he told Reba, dropping into his usual man¬ 
ner of free and easy camaraderie. “I trust I’m still 
staunch, but I’ll not answer for myself if I hear that 
voice many times.” 

“What a wonderful idea you have given me! I’ll 
beg, coax, plead until Mavis Duncan comes in and 
sings to you. I’ll go now and fall on my knees to her.” 

But he seized her arm when she started away. 
“Confound it, Reba, you sound just as if you mean 
that!” 

“I do!” She smiled, but there was no jest in her 
tone. 

He grumbled, “Reba, I think I’ll hold you for the 
higher court by having our engagement announced.” 
She led the way into the apartment, making no reply. 

Lang was not wholly prepared to find Skiddy Trask 
ahead of him, but he had admitted the possibility of 
the contretemps, taking thought on the other’s hysteri¬ 
cal flash of defiance in the club. 

The newcomer nodded casually to young Trask and 
crossed the room and paid his respects to Reba’s 
mother. There was no mistaking in which direction 
the mother’s favor lay. She welcomed Lang with 


28 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


warmth and urged him to get out his pipe quickly. 
“Faugh!” she whispered when Lang sat down beside 
her on the divan. “Those dreadful cigarettes of his!” 
Her nod was directed toward Skiddy. 

At Trask’s elbow was a tray already heaped with 
half-burned fags. He was smoking nervously, inhal¬ 
ing deeply, lighting a fresh cigarette after a few puffs. 
His fingers trembled noticeably and he did not look at 
Lang who sat and surveyed the rival with a steady, 
level stare. 

Again Lang was feeling his gorge rise and his ire 
flame—it was the same ugly resentment that surged 
in him when he had seen Reba dancing with young 
Trask at balls; Lang did not dance. 

John Lang had never been able to win against 
Skiddy with Reba when he protested—not consciously 
from the standpoint of a jealous lover, for he scorned 
to admit that he was jealous. But he had insisted that 
association with Skiddy Trask, even on a ballroom 
floor, was contamination. And Reba had merely 
smiled, in her superior way, and had demanded of 
Lang why he intimated that she belonged in his cata¬ 
logue of the weak sisterhood! 

More than ever did Lang wonder what the matter 
was with him. He had been able to analyze emotions 
pretty well till then. But now there was a peculiar, 
pervasive rage in him which he could not understand. 
He could not bring his reasoning faculties to bear on 
the problem. He was feeling a strange sense of appre¬ 
hension, as if he were not sure of his hale, normal 
self. He glowered at young Trask. Was he, John 
Lang, tripping over this twig in his stride of a man 
headed toward his object? 

Under the circumstances the conversation was em¬ 
barrassingly spasmodic. Lang, calling on the Don- 


REBA AND MAVIS 


29 


worths, was never very talkative; he liked to smoke 
his pipe and be talked to. 

A tap on the door was a welcome interruption. Reba 
ran and flung the door wide open and was insistent 
even to the point of what seemed almost like despera¬ 
tion when the callers apologized and were about to 
go away. “We thought you were alone!” 

Lang gathered from the words at the door that the 
visitors were the Stewarts. As soon as he understood 
that Reba was urging them to enter he disregarded 
conventions; he joined her at the door. “May I not 
add my own appeal? I’m eager to know the singer 
who held me in my tracks, eavesdropping a little while 
ago!” He was then presented to Mavis Duncan. 

At first, when they were seated, he did not concern 
himself particularly with the personal appearance of 
the girl; he looked upon her with interest as the pos¬ 
sessor of a marvelous voice. When Mrs. Donworth 
asked her to sing she assented, not self-conscious, not 
deprecating, but sweetly compliant, with the desire to 
please if she were able. Lang found her ready consent 
as natural as if the song thrush, her namesake, had 
responded. Mrs. Stewart took her seat at the piano. 

Mavis turned to Lang. “If you would care for it, 
I’ll sing again the song you were kind enough to com¬ 
pliment.” 

“It was on my tongue to ask you!” 

For a moment her eyes lingered with his, without 
a hint of coquetry. Then he was more fully aware of 
her charm. The eyes were blue, but dark eyebrows 
gave her countenance peculiar distinction because her 
hair was wondrously fair—a nimbus for her beauty 
as she stood against the mellow radiance from the floor 
lamp. Then she sang. 

Young Trask nervously sought another cigarette in 


30 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


his case. He put back the case when Lang swept an 
imperious gesture. 

The song was a ballad with French words. Though 
the air was simple, an arrangement enabled her to 
display a charming voice to great advantage. Lang 
leaped to his feet in his enthusiasm when she had 
finished. “It’s the Chaudiere boat song—I recognize 
now the strain running through it. I have heard it up 
there.” 

“I’m from the Chaudiere valley, sir. I have ven¬ 
tured to take some liberties with the song.” 

“And you wrote it as you have sung it?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“And you have written others, have you?” 

She smiled and bowed, wistfully pleased by his frank 
admiration. 

“One more, then!” he pleaded. 

It was a bit of a love chanson—a lilt with piquancy 
and verve. 

She broke in, deprecating his praise. “I accept only 
a bit of it myself. The rest is for the valley of the 
Chaudiere. You are fond of it, if you have been there, 
is it not so?” 

“I saw it while you sang! The hills sweeping up 
from the river, the willows at the shore, the little 
houses all so white! I want to go back, some day.” 

While they talked eagerly, young Trask was taking 
thought. The discomposing stare of Lang was no 
longer fixed on Skiddy and the latter was employing 
the respite, endeavoring to evolve something which 
could mollify this man whom he feared—the man who 
was closest to a tyrannical uncle as adviser, aid and 
right hand executive where delicate negotiations were 
concerned. Praise seemed to be in the air. There¬ 
fore, Skiddy resorted to praise, dragging in a topic 


REBA AND MAVIS 


31 


malapropos, having a childish impulse, also, to jump 
his listeners with fresh news. 

“Being praised by the next mayor of our city is 
something worth while,” he blurted. 

He produced an effect—it was amazed silence. 

“It’s a straight tip,” said Trask. “There he sits 
—the mayoralty is going to be handed to him on a 
silver salver.” His finger wavered when he pointed at 
Lang; his grin was intended to convey fulsome flat¬ 
tery; he was burning obsequious incense as best he 
was able. 

Lang, looking away from Trask, as if he feared to 
trust himself, beheld the face of Mavis Duncan; his 
interest was promptly concerned with her instead of 
with Trask. She was pale, troubled, distraught. Her 
eyes were wide and her lips trembled. Lang could 
hardly believe the evidence he was beholding. It was 
inexplicable, any such interest as this in him or in 
the political affairs of a city in which she was a 
stranger. Lang felt a worthy impulse to calm her, 
provided the inopportune news had roused the emo¬ 
tions which were so apparent. He talked to all of 
them, so they might fix their attention on him instead 
of on her. 

“You have heard only some silly gossip,” he drawled, 
smiling and making light of the matter. 

“I was in the club and heard the big fellows settle 
on it finally,” insisted Skiddy, desperately anxious to 
make his flattery stick—determined to assert his im¬ 
portance as a news bureau. “They’re going to make 
you take the nomination!” 

“You—shut—up!” commanded Lang menacingly. 
Then he went on with mild and indifferent manner. 
“To be the mayor of this city means to be sentenced 
to a four years’ term in a cage where anybody can 


32 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


come along and poke a sharp stick between the ribs 
of the man who is fool enough to take the job. If I 
say I don’t want any such a job I may sound like a 
conceited ass, but I know that in here”—he patted his 
breast—“I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t want to be the 
mayor—I don’t think there’s any chance that I am 
going to be. Now, let’s talk about something sen¬ 
sible!” 

“But allow me to say,” ventured Stewart who had 
taken a peculiar interest of his own in the topic, 
“there’s nobody who stands much show against you if 
you want to be the next mayor.” 

“It’s my idea, too—it’s what they all say,” pro¬ 
claimed young Trask—then under the glare of Lang’s 
eyes he rose, made his adieus awkwardly and departed. 

“Mr. Stewart, you have my assurance that I do not 
care for the position,” stated the lawyer. Mavis was 
at the door, having taken advantage of Trask’s de¬ 
parture to signify her own intention of retiring. Lang 
could not see her face. 

When he was left alone with Reba and her mother 
he did not sit down. He looked at the cigarette butts 
piled in the tray, snatched up the holder and dumped 
the fags into the grate fire; his manner was eloquent. 

“I’m sorry to be leaving so abruptly!” His tone 
was curt, his manner as abrupt as the apology. “But 
I have been called to a conference with an important 
client.” He marched out into the hall and snatched 
his coat from the rack. 

Reba followed him. Muting her voice she said, “I’m 
afraid you’re making business a pretense. I wish 
you would stay for a while. We should talk over our 
affairs without anger.” 

“That would be impossible—this evening—without 
anger—on my part,” he returned roughly. 


REBA AND MAVIS 


33 


“But I have done nothing—not at this time—to 
make you angry, John! You must pardon me for 
being startled for a moment.” 

He was remembering the apathy in her face, as re¬ 
vealed by the mirror. 

“It’s the other thing—afterward—it made me angry. 
Oh, I see you don’t understand. No matter. Listen! 
I’m going to give you a chance—if it’s as bad between 
us as it seems to be. Choose a man , Reba. He can 
have you if he’s somebody who doesn’t insult my 
pride and self-respect. Slur in your thoughts what 
you call my vanity if you choose. But that must be 
the bargain between us! You look at me as if I were 
crazy. Perhaps I am, seeing what this devilish thing 
has developed into. I’m just crazy enough to tell 
you that Trask can’t have you. That nasty little 
animal shall not defile the girl I have loved. I’ll have 
myself under better command the next time I come 
here. Oh, yes, I’m coming! Perhaps it’s only an 
unpleasant dream we’re having, anyway! I think 
we’re going to be sensible after a little, and wake up. 
Good night!” 

He did not offer any more caresses. He was calm 
again and she copied his calmness, walking with him to 
the elevator. 

“You’re looking extremely well tonight, John! Is 
the important client a lady?” 

“Jealous?” 

“No, John.” 

“I’m sorry! I had a moment’s flash of hope.” The 
retort was charged with sarcasm. 

The elevator came and he left her. 


CHAPTER FOUR 

Old Trask of the Double T 

ANG found a cab at the street corner and 
was taken to the home of Serenus Trask 
in the suburbs of the city. As usual, the 
great gates of the extensive grounds were 
closed, but after he had sent away the 
cab, he used his knowledge of the place by entering 
between granite posts which flanked the narrow walk. 
The home of Trask was a stone mansion well back 
from the street. The other houses of the neighbor¬ 
hood were shielded by deciduous trees; at that season 
the leaves were stripped off and the houses could be 
seen. But the stone mansion was concealed, em¬ 
bowered in spruces and Norway pines and hemlocks 
—evergreens brought down from the North country 
—“black growth” from the timberlands of the Double 
T. 

In the north they usually called Trask “Old Double 
T” on account of his registered logmark cut into the 
end of every stick of the millions of his spring drive. 

The grounds of the stone house were not well cared 
for. Trask was habitually in the woods more than 
he was in the city and he liked a rough outdoors and 
hated the slickness of smooth lawns. The stones of 
the mansion’s walls were rough, too. Fastened like 
some sort of armorial shield on the outside of the big 
door was a cantdog, handle and all; the hinged iron 
dog made a passable knocker. But Lang knew where 
the button of the bell was and he pushed it. 

The caller had his mouth open to greet the door- 
34 












OLD TRASK OF THE DOUBLE T 35 


man familiarly. For years Trask had employed an 
old man whose rheumatism had unfitted him for his 
ancient job as a timber cruiser. But a strange, smart 
young chap in buttons pulled open the door and he 
did not step back when Lang started to enter. 

“Beg pardon, sir! But Mr. Trask will see no one 
this evening except a gentleman who is to call late.” 

“Don’t you know who I am?” 

“No, sir! It’s my first day in the house, sir.” 

“I’m Mr. Lang. Your master is expecting me.” 

“But not so early, Lang. Not so early! ” It was the 
rasping voice of Trask within. “Come along! I’m 
glad you’re here. And I’ll be cursed glad to get the 
business through with before any such ungodly hour 
as you hinted at.” In his associations in the city, the 
woods tyrant did not try to modify his manner of 
speech. 

Lang walked in, saying as he stepped forward to 
greet Trask, “But I didn’t hint at any late hour, sir!” 

“Oh, I guessed at it since hearing the pretty stories 
about the lass, son! ” 

Then Lang stopped short and stared almost aghast 
at Trask because, when the old man had fairly tittered 
what he said in a jocose tone, full of sly significance, 
he winked. Lang found this hilarity as amazing as 
if the stuffed loupcervier that decorated the newel 
post of a staircase near them had begun to sing a 
dulcet song out of the mouth set wide in a vicious 
grimace. Serenus Trask, blatantly a confirmed bache¬ 
lor, ready at all times to express his contempt for 
women, had just mentioned one of the sex and had 
giggled and grinned! 

Lang decided that the grin was more discomposing 
than the habitual scowl Trask carried around. The 
smirk did not belong with the countenance it was 


36 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


adorning. The lawyer had never been particularly at 
ease when Trask was looking at him, nor was any 
other man comfortable under the gaze of Double T. 
One of his eyes “toed out” instead of having a twist 
inward after the usual manner of strabismus. The 
affliction kept one nervously trying to guess which 
eye was the right one to catch in a conversation. 

Other circumstances were putting Lang into a flab¬ 
bergasted state. The lawyer had seen Serenus Trask 
in all sorts of attire, through the gamut of tweeds, 
slouchy frocks, belted jackets and larrigans, but he 
had never seen him garbed in what Old Double T was 
wearing then. 

He was swathed in a flowered silk dressing robe, 
with a silk sash knotted about his waist. Out of the 
folds projected a wattled neck stained to dull red hues 
by weather exposure; set on the neck was that seamed 
face—with the grin. He stuck back into his mouth 
an obtrusively new ivory holder in which was tilted a 
big cigar, and then he shuffled along and poked a 
gnarled thumb into Lang’s abdomen. “All alike, eh, 
Lang? Men are all alike!” 

He did not bother to await a reply but turned and 
started back from the hall toward the room from 
which he had come and Lang promptly followed, for 
it was the sanctum where he always conferred with 
Trask. It opened off the main hall and was spacious. 
It was wainscoted high with massive logs highly var¬ 
nished. Above the wainscoting were walls made of 
peeled saplings set perpendicular to the logs below. 
Those walls were decorated with crosscut saws, looped 
bind-chains and with axes arranged to form huge 
rosettes. Other adornments were maps which showed 
great stretches of country with splashes of blue lakes 
and striations of streams and rivers. 


OLD TRASK OF THE DOUBLE T 37 


“Send me an invitation to the wedding, Lang,” pur¬ 
sued the host, kicking around a chair for the accom¬ 
modation of the caller and showing red morocco 
slippers under the robe. “You have always handed 
me a good brand of law in return for my money and 
I want to do something handsome for you when you 
join drives with the lass. Maybe Fll come to the 
wedding.” He tittered again. 

Lang had laid off his overcoat before sitting down. 

“Stand up and turn around slowly,” commanded the 
master of men. “Who’s your tailor?” 

“I haven’t got your set-up and figure,” he went on 
after Lang had given the information, “but a good 
tailor can probably hide faults as well as a Soubungo 
farmer can deacon a barrel of apples for market. 
I’ll drop in on your man tomorrow and tell him if 
he doesn’t do as well for me as he has for you on a 
dress suit, I’ll lace him with a trace-chain.” 

Such frank amazement as Lang was showing could 
no longer be disregarded by a man with the acumen 
Trask possessed. “You don’t find me harmonizing 
tonight with the style of my old den, I take it! Find 
me a little different, eh?” He patted the flowered robe. 

“I’ll admit it, now you have brought the subject up!” 

The client was immensely tickled by thoughts which 
he did not impart. However, he did say, “Perhaps 
I’ll harmonize better after I’ve had these logs ripped 
out of this room, and some genteel plastering done.” 

Lang gazed around him. “That seems to be quite 
a change for you to make, sir, after all the satisfaction 
you have expressed about this style.” 

“We change, son! We change!” confessed Trask 
amiably. “What we like early, we don’t like later 
—some of us. It’s lucky our natures change. The 
world wouldn’t be what it is if we didn’t shift ’round 


38 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


and view things in a new light. You see, I have been 
sticking to the woods much too close! Yes—yes, 
much too close.” He flicked off his cigar ash. “So, 
Eve been away—South. Made a long trip of it. Nice 
time. Picked up new ideas. Haven’t seen the North 
woods for months.” 

Lang tried hard to get Trask’s eyes into some sort 
of a line so he could study them; Trask was apparently 
looking squarely and frankly at his lawyer but the 
eyes did not focus in a way to reveal anything. 

“I got back from the woods only this morning—I 
have been hunting on some of your timberlands,” 
stated Lang, and he paused a moment, trying to make 
up his mind to inform Trask that, according to reports 
current in the North country, the baron of the Double 
T had been on his lands within the week of his attor¬ 
ney’s stay. 

While the other hesitated Trask inquired casually, 
“Any especial amount of snow up there yet?” 

“Not much! A foot or two, but I think it’s too soft 
to stay.” His tone was as indifferent as Trask’s had 
been. Lang cooled suddenly in the matter of his 
enterprise of tasking Trask with having been in the 
North country inside of a few days. 

“I’ll get the walking bosses’ reports, of course, but 
I’m glad to have a tip from you that there’s no chance 
to start hauling logs yet. I’d like to hang around 
home here a few weeks to arrange for interior improve¬ 
ments in this house. I’m going to make quite a job 
of it. How long were you up country, Lang?” 

“About a week. Mostly in the Brassua region.” 
In that region was located the log castle which served 
as Double T headquarters in the winter. 

Then Lang got the range of Trask’s eyes and 
swapped real stares with Old Double T. 


OLD TRASK OF THE DOUBLE T 39 


The host relighted his cigar, and took his time about 
it. While his face was wreathed with smoke he said, 
“Fm glad to hear that, too. I may get another tip from 
you. Did you happen to hear about, or lay eyes on, 
a certain stranger up there who looks so much like 
me they’re taking him for me?” 

“If you mean a double, Mr. Trask, I’ll say no—I 
heard nothing about one.” 

Lang’s legal mind felt like probing this matter— 
but with care. He put as much significance into his 
tone as he dared. 

Apparently, Trask did not notice the significance or 
was too well grounded in conscious innocence to be 
disturbed. “There is such a fellow, so one of my 
walking bosses writes me. But I haven’t found he’s 
trying to cash checks with my name or to borrow 
money—so I guess I won’t need your legal advice on 
that thing—not now, at any rate. I didn’t call you up 
here for that. By the way, you’re quite a society 
bird, I suppose.” 

“No, I’m not, sir.” 

“Well, you must have made it your way to go into 
a lot of good houses and you probably understand the 
genteel styles of furnishings.” 

“The only thing I ever notice about a chair is 
whether the legs are strong enough to hold me up.” 

“Well, no matter if you don’t know. I can hire 
men who make it their business. I didn’t call you up 
here to talk about furniture, either. Seen my nephew 
Serenus Skidmore Trask, Second, lately?” 

“Yes, sir! I see him pretty regularly.” 

“Don’t you think it’s about time for him to hitch 
up—I mean a marriage—with a real woman?” de¬ 
manded the uncle bluntly. 

Wondering just how much the elder Trask knew, 


40 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Lang was laconic in the interests of subtlety. “I 
think he’s willing to get married.” 

“And settle down?” 

“That’s the way he has talked.” 

The lawyer was dreading the next question. Trask 
was going to ask just as bluntly who the woman was! 

But Trask pulled the stub of the cigar from the 
holder, blew violently through the stem and tossed 
the holder on the table. “There’s some comfort, Lang, 
in making an investment, and controlling the invest¬ 
ment—being able to have the absolute say about it. 
I control all my investments. I’ve bought and paid 
for Serenus Skidmore Trask, Second. Have been won¬ 
dering just what I’d do with him when the time 
came to use him. Have thought sometimes I had 
wasted my money. But no! Now I’m ready to use 
him and he’s just the tool I want. I’m going to use 
him in buying something where cash can’t be used.” 
He pulled out a drawer of the desk-table, and fumbled 
there. “I’m going to marry him off.” 

“Without consulting him about the woman?” 

Trask levelled his wall-eye at Lang from under a 
knotted brow. His expression was one of amazed 
wrath. “What the hell has he got to say about a 
wife, any more than he’s allowed to yap against any¬ 
thing else when I’m giving him his orders? Look at 
her!” He scaled a photograph across the table and 
Lang caught it. It portrayed a woman’s face, broad, 
pudgy, with little eyes, deep-set, and a simpering 
mouth. “Awful for looks, eh? Yes, I know it. I’m 
a better judge of women than I used to be.” Again 
that peculiar titter. “But that’s Maravista Blake, 
son. Does the name, Blake, tell you anything?” 

“You mean Jonas Blake who-” 

“I mean Jonas Blake, and I hope there’s a night- 



OLD TRASK OF THE DOUBLE T 41 


and-day shift sticking red-hot stove covers under him 
in Tophet. That’s his daughter. Heiress of the 
Tulandic townships. That’s where she has lived under 
old Jonas’s thumb, and now she wants to see the world 
and shine in society.” Trask spat with a sort of 
explosion of disgust. “See the point now, don’t you, 
Lang?” 

“Yes! But does she forget the old feud and take 
your nephew-” 

“She hasn’t brains enough to know there was a 
feud. I guess she thinks her father and I were blow¬ 
ing up each other’s dams all those years in fun, like 
boys rolling marbles. I’m going to run the Tulandic 
for her from now on—whilst she’s running my nephew. 
She and I have a perfect understanding. She wants 
to marry a real gent—and I want to save a hundred 
thousand dollars a year by joining drives; that saving 
for me will come from merely joining her hands to 
my nephew’s. Good investment when I made him a 
gent, eh? Had a hunch I could use a thing of that 
sort when old Jonas could be got out of the way!” 

“It’s lucky for you somebody hasn’t grabbed her up 
before this,” said Lang drily. 

“Wait till you see her! She has been perfectly safe, 
even in Tulandic. But the marriage matter isn’t what 
I called you up here for. Fixing it up ahead with the 
girl was the main thing—the marriage is self-operating 
from now on.” 

He pulled out another drawer and began to fumble. 

Trask brought out a thick packet of papers and 
shook it. “Here are the schedules of my properties 
and the old will you drew for me, Lang. I’ve called 
you up here to draft a new will—an air-tight one— 
not a legal hole in it. Understand? Then, as I told 
you, I’ll sleep better tonight. No man knows what 



42 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


may happen to him after he’s past seventy. But wait 
a moment!” 

He laid the packet on the table and made a long 
survey of the lawyer, wrinkling his forehead, clawing 
at his shaggy eyebrows, pondering. 

“I didn’t intend to do it—but I’m going to. I 
didn’t intend to take any chances—not yet awhile.” 
He rose slowly, and then he plumped back into his 
chair. His face had worn a sly, satisfied, proud smirk. 
Now it hardened while he looked Lang up and down. 
“No, damn you, I won’t—not whilst you’re wearing 
those clothes. Danger comes from starting new ideas!” 

Lang’s convictions were settled: the simple, Tul- 
andic heiress was in the house and Trask was appre¬ 
hensive lest the nephew’s monopoly might be endan¬ 
gered. The lawyer smiled grimly, reached out and 
turned the photograph face down while Trask stared. 

“Your eyes are easily hurt, eh, where women are 
concerned?” demanded the old man. 

“Something like that.” 

Once more Trask rose. He banged his fist on the 
table. “I may as well make the break now as any 
time. I reckon you’ll come back into this room and 
put more power into that will. Better have you 
understand. Come along!” He strode away, his head 
shoved forward, his silk robe swishing, making a 
strange figure of a man in that interior of rugged 
plainness. 

Lang followed into the hall, up the stairs past the 
ironical grin of the stuffed loupcervier, and was 
ordered to wait a few paces from a closed door. 
Trask opened the door and went in. 

The lawyer, waiting, smiled at his thoughts. Un¬ 
doubtedly, he was to be called upon to be polite to 
Maravista Blake, the dea ex machina in the general 


OLD TRASK OF THE DOUBLE T 43 


solution of the difficulties that ranged all the way from 
the elder Trask’s long warfare in the North to the 
troubled love affairs of Lang himself and Trask, the 
younger, and Reba. It would be easy to be polite to 
such a woman. 

“Come in!” called the old man, appearing in the 
doorway. 

The room which Lang entered was only dimly 
lighted. He stumbled over the end of a roll of rugs. 

“New ones!” said Trask. “Thousand-dollar ones! 
Haven’t had time to spread ’em. Thought of ordering 
you to wear smoked glasses in here, on account of 
those eyes of yours. But maybe just as well! You 
must take a chance.” 

There was no one except the two men in the room. 
Trask went to a portiere, a heavy velour affair that 
closed in a large alcove; there was plenty of light be¬ 
yond the curtain; radiance streamed under the edge. 
Without preface or pause, the old man pulled the 
drapery aside. It was not merely the light-flood which 
made Lang close his eyes for a moment. 

Reclining on a broad divan was a young woman in 
an elaborate negligee, if a heavily embroidered man¬ 
darin jacket could be called such. The massed pil¬ 
lows, the extravagance of colors almost garish, the 
pomp of too many jewels sparkling and glittering on 
fingers and breast, and even in her hair, furnished a 
setting which Lang found Oriental, pagan, almost un¬ 
real. It was like some sort of a tableau in a show; 
Trask’s dramatic drawing of the curtain helped that 
illusion. 

But the face at which the visitor stared with widen¬ 
ing eyes was not the pudgy face of the photograph. 
He found even more unreality in the face he saw 
than in the bewildering sumptuousness of the setting. 


44 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


The girl was young and wonderfully beautiful, with 
the beauty so alluring when it is free from apparent 
sophistication. She gazed back at Lang with the abso¬ 
lute composure which a baby or a kitten displays in 
the presence of strangers. She did not have the air 
of consciously vaunting her charms. She seemed to 
be content because she was as she was, and to feel the 
world was kind to her. A slow smile drew her lips a 
bit away from her white teeth—an ingenuous smile. 
She quite frankly showed her interest and approval 
when she looked at the tall chap in evening dress. As 
if her expression did not suit his ideas, Trask stepped 
between her and Lang and bent and kissed her fer¬ 
vently. 

He turned from her and dropped the portiere and 
came and stood before the lawyer with the air of proud, 
jealous, triumphant possession. 

“Now you can see why I want a new will that all 
hell can’t break. She’s going to have everything my 
money can bring her, Lang.” 

“Yes, but who is she?” 

“You infernal fool, what do you think? She’s my 
wife.” 


CHAPTER FIVE 
New Love and Old Wine 


T midnight, Trask and his lawyer were 
finishing a job whose details and side- 
issues had required patient attention. It 
was not merely framing the new will, the 
rough draft of which was tucked into 
Lang’s pocket to be put into formal manuscript on the 
morrow; there also was a plan of procedure to be 
devised in regard to the marriage of Trask the 
younger. 

In arranging the methods of control of the Tul- 
andic properties, they considered in addition the con¬ 
trol of the nephew in case he might show rebelliousness. 
Old Double T ridiculed the idea when Lang sug¬ 
gested that the nephew might not obey. 

“Damn it, I own him,” the uncle blurted arrogantly. 

“Even so! And you have owned a good many colts, 
head, hide, and hoofs. But you have to break a colt 
before you can use him.” 

“You’re a good lawyer to have in the family, Lang. 
You always tie things up solid. Yes, a good lawyer!” 

Lang was wondering just how honest a lawyer he was 
at that moment. He was not in the habit of lying to 
himself. He knew how much rancor was in him. Only 
a few hours previous the rancor had driven him to 
brandish over Trask the threat of antagonizing the 
uncle. The lawyer had not realized how soon the 
opportunity would present itself. He was in a bitter 
mood and felt the impulse to grasp such an oppor- 
45 










46 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


tunity. He put the thought of legal ethics away from 
him and went at the matter on the plane of man to 
man, in a very human conflict for the possession of a 
woman. He told himself this was no time to be a 
fool in regard to niceties of conduct. 

The attitude of the elder Trask was making the 
opportunity more tempting. “If this particular colt 
is going to need a twist bit, Lang, I’m depending on 
you to rig one for him. By the way, all prices are up, 
these days. Is that retaining fee, ten thousand a year, 
enough for the time being?” 

It was merely Trask’s usual bluntness in his talk 
of money matters and Lang knew there was no sug¬ 
gestion of a bribe. Nevertheless, conscious of his 
secret and his ulterior motives, he was also conscious 
of a twinge in his professional sense of pride. 

“I don’t want to feel as if my retainer has anything 
to do with this case of your nephew,” he declared, 
showing a flash of resentment. “I’m not doing it for 
pay. It’s wholly from my interest in a family which I 
have served as counsel.” 

“That’s it! I like that. And I’m going to let you go 
ahead with him, according to your own notions of 
what’s best. Call on me for authority and I’ll back 
you up. But be sure your twist bit is a good one.” 

“I’ll attend to that, sir,” promised Lang, setting his 
jaws. 

Working out the details of the pressure to be brought 
on young Trask, in case the nephew showed con¬ 
tumacy, Lang was occupied for some time. He wrote 
while Trask puffed a cigar, this time disdaining the 
effeminacy of the ostentatious ivory holder. 

It was the final matter of business in the session of 
client and lawyer that evening. The only light in 
the big room was the circle of glow on the table under 


NEW LOVE AND OLD WINE 


47 


the shade of the lamp. The walls and the corners were 
banked with gloom. There was no sound in the great 
mansion of stone. 

In spite of his concentration on his task, Lang’s 
thoughts kept drifting to that radiant girl above¬ 
stairs. The old man had not referred again to her or 
his marriage since his declaration of her identity in 
front of the portiere after he had dropped it to eclipse 
her beauty. 

The lawyer found it somewhat easier to credit 
Trask’s calm assurance in regard to the trip south; 
the singular air of the girl suggested such past environ¬ 
ment. Lang was even inclined to place some stock in 
Trask’s fantastic statement about that double of his 
in the North country. The story was far-fetched, but 
it was more credible than the supposition that this 
girl had come out of the snows. 

Sometimes, in the course of his writing, the lawyer 
paused and pondered, as if meditating exclusively on 
the intricacies of the matter in hand; but he was 
thinking of the girl upstairs. Her smile lingered with 
him. There was something elusive about the attrac¬ 
tion she exerted. 

Lang, whose business it was to delve into human 
hearts and emotions, had studied sex attraction on its 
higher plane—the psychic quality of certain rare 
female types, a mystic dominance of men by influences 
above and beyond those bonds which mere physical 
senses weld on a captive. He perceived something of 
this in the conquest of the aged and confirmed hater 
of women. 

In a whimsical effort to recall verses which he had 
read in that connection, he used the blank side of a 
sheet of paper on which he had jotted some of his legal 
notes, and sought to aid his memory by writing out the 


48 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


words. Old Double T was staring at him through 
smoke clouds, but saw only a prosaic lawyer working 
for a client. 

“For Love has saved that perfect mold 
In which fair Helen’s form was cast; 

With passion’s heat he melts the gold 
Of beauty of the storied past, 

And once again, with art, he pours, 

And then, with glory of the morn, 

In other climes—on other shores— 
Transcendent Helen is reborn.” 

Lang had been reading aloud, as he progressed, the 
various clauses of the agreement young Trask was to 
be forced to follow. 

“That one seems to be a corker, judging from the 
attention you’re giving to it,” suggested Trask. “How 
does she read?” 

“It’s too strong—altogether too strong,” said Lang, 
and he shuffled the sheet among his papers, folded them 
and put them into his pocket. His comment agreed 
with the sudden secret disgust with which he was 
viewing the strange obsession he had just been allow¬ 
ing to take control of his thoughts. 

“Sir, I think the other stipulations will do the work, 
if your nephew accepts them.” 

“I’m leaving it to you, Lang, to see to it he does 
accept them—agrees to do exactly what you tell him to 
do, and in all respects.” 

“Don’t you think,” paltered the lawyer, “you’d bet¬ 
ter tell him, yourself?” 

“I have always let you act for me in fixing up those 
girl affairs of his,” stated Trask with decision. “You’ll 
have to do the talking to him in this matter. He and 
I can’t get to anything sensible when we talk—never 


NEW LOVE AND OLD WINE 


49 


could. Always a devil of a row! I don’t do anything 
except cuss him—and I swear too much, anyway. 
Going to cut it out! Sounds like hell, now there’s a 
lady in the house.” Making this, his first reference to 
the girl upstairs following their meeting with her, the 
old man’s eyes lighted up. “I’m not asking you what 
you think of her. Don’t intend to. I know well 
enough. Didn’t introduce you, eh? Didn’t intend to.” 
He pulled his lips away from his teeth and edged out 
the words. “Don’t propose to have any young fools 
ducking and dancing around her. I’ve got her and 
she’s mine. And you keep my marriage damn mum! 
Understand?” 

It was only more of Trask’s coarse arrogance and 
customary self-complacency—Lang had grown accus¬ 
tomed to his client’s habits in speech and action. 
However, on this occasion the attorney found some¬ 
thing peculiarly rasping in this triumphant pride of 
possession. 

“Envy me, hey?” Trask sneered and grinned, scru¬ 
tinizing Lang’s dour countenance. “Oh, well, I can’t 
blame you. But I can trust you—that’s why I showed 
her to you. Now, well, you’ve seen what’s upstairs! 
The new wife! I’ll do the usual honors!” 

He pulled a bunch of keys from a drawer and 
shuffled out of the room, telling Lang to wait. One 
after the other, two doors banged, announcing that 
Trask had gone far into the bowels of the house. The 
attorney, assorting a stack of loose sheets on the table, 
heard no sound in the room, but he became aware of 
some sort of sheen near his elbow, at the edge of the 
circle of radiance from the lamp. He glanced and 
saw the embroidery of the mandarin coat, shimmering. 
He lifted his eyes to the girl’s face. 

She smiled. There was no longer blank ingenu- 


so 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


ousness in her smile, he sensed. Her face was partly 
in the shadow. He was not able to assure himself 
absolutely as to any subtlety in her expression; but 
he noted that the smile was for the lips only; her eyes 
were steady and wide and searching. 

“I tiptoed down. I have been over there in the 
shadows, listening.” She made no apology for eaves¬ 
dropping. 

He rose hastily and faced her. 

“No doubt you find me as—as peculiar as my hus¬ 
band! But that is as it should be if he and I are to 
get along together—and we shall. What I have heard 
has been very interesting. I thank you, Mr. John 
Lang, for being such a thoughtful lawyer. I’m glad 
to know how well my affairs will stand!” 

She was undeniably in control of the situation just 
then. Lang, running over in his mind what had been 
said in the room, was awkwardly unable to reply to 
her. 

“You have told him to do many things and he has 
agreed. I have a great admiration for men who can 
give advice.” 

“Pardon me, madam! I don’t tell Mr. Trask what 
to do—I’m merely his attorney.” 

“It is the same—you have power. And I’ll be very 
glad to call you my good friend from now on. We 
must excuse his lack of politeness a little while ago.” 
She made a moue of scorn and pointed into the 
shadows. “It’s ridiculous, isn’t it, hiding me? And 
showing me off like a lay figure when I was trying on 
my jewels? But he is a dear old man—and you must 
help me in ridding him of his silly notions.” 

He bowed stiffly. 

There was the bang of a distant door. Lang had 
been trying to frame something in the way of a sensi- 


NEW LOVE AND OLD WINE 


51 


ble reply but that boding bang sent his thoughts 
scurrying. 

“I suggest—it might be wise—it might appear-” 

he stammered, apprehensive in regard to this tete-a-tete 
in the shadows. 

“Not so perfectly innocent as we know it to be, sir!” 
she broke in mischievously. “But I have expressed 

my gratitude and now-” She put her finger to her 

lips and hastened into the dark corner. 

Trask came shuffling, bringing a dusty bottle and 
two glasses. He poured the liquor carefully. “Here’s 
to the lady above us! She’s making it enough of a 
heaven up there to suit me for the time being!” was the 
uxorious toast proposed by Double T. Lang could not 
help turning a glance toward the dark corner when he 
drank. The wine was manifestly having its effect on 
Trask when he escorted his lawyer to the door a bit 
later. The old man’s eyes were humid, his titter was 
more hilarious. 

“It’s too bad, Lang, I can’t go into the market and 
buy years off some young fool like I’d buy stumpage 
off timberlands. I could make it worth while for 
somebody with more time than money. I’ve just 
begun to live.” 

The new wife took advantage of his absorption in 
that declaration; his back was turned on the hall. 
She hurried noiselessly out of the den and ascended the 
stairs. Lang was guilty of betraying her by his gaze 
—he tried to keep his eyes off her and failed. Trask 
saw the lawyer’s distraction and whirled. 

The girl, looking over her shoulder, was too quick 
for the husband. When the old man sighted her she 
was standing as if she had just started to descend the 
stairs. 

“Anita!” he chided, scowling. 




52 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“But you have left me all alone for so long, my 
husband! ” 

Trask turned slowly and leered at Lang. “You 
see!” muttered the old husband. “That’s the way to 
have ’em! ” As if he felt easier in his mind about her 
loyal allegiance he called her down and presented Lang. 

“I’ll have to mind my manners a little better because 
I’ve got such a wonderful wife. New joy and old 
wine—they go to a fellow’s head, hey, what, Lang?” 
He poked his forefinger against the lawyer’s ribs and 
tittered again. “He knows what it is, Anita! He’s 
got his own girl. Love makes the world go round— 
and the arms go round!” Trask hooked her to his 
side in a rough embrace. 

Considering that this was Serenus Skidmore Trask, 
Lang found the tableau amazing—and distinctly un¬ 
pleasant. He made a perfunctory little speech of well- 
wishing and got away as quickly as he could. 


CHAPTER SIX 
The Girl With a Plea 


ANG went to bed with the sense of an 
ominous creak in the machinery of his 
settled philosophy of life. He was not 
relishing his state of mind and he was not 
able to define what seemed to be an alarm- 
signal in his conscientiousness. 

He rose in the morning with the unhappy conviction 
that the machinery was still squeaking. The principal 
trouble seemed to be in the region of the sense of 
self-approbation. He went forth to the tasks of the 
day and scowled when he saw his reflection in the shop 
windows. By this expressed disfavor he felt he was 
answering, somehow, a certain critic who had given the 
questionable title of vanity to what he considered to 
be manly and proper pride. 

And she had called him selfish! So had Doctor 
Anson. 

On an eminence in the city park which he was cross¬ 
ing on his way to his office, the workers for a national 
charity had erected a great clock face, its hands mark¬ 
ing the growth of the quota solicited. 

When he arrived at his desk he drew a check, wrote 
a note and summoned a messenger. The check was 
for the charity—and the sum he gave was ten thousand 
dollars. He considered he was answering taunts as to 
his selfishness. Furthermore, the amount was the sum 
of his annual retainer from Serenus Skidmore Trask. 

With that check Lang was answering, too, his own 
53 












54 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


conscience in some measure—telling the quizzing con¬ 
science that by giving away the money he was now 
free to deal with Young Trask without incurring the 
self-imputation of handling a presumptuous ingrate 
for the wage involved. This was for his private com¬ 
fort; if the world did not know and understand, so 
much the worse for a meddling world! 

Skiddy Trask had reported correctly as to the meet¬ 
ing of the puissant politicians in the Talisman Club. 
They made no secret of the affair, having decided 
definitely to capture John Lang for their purposes. 

Judge Anderson had taken it upon himself to hole 
the fox this morning in Lang’s law office. The elderly 
justice seemed to qualify as the most effective inter¬ 
mediary. 

But a vivid memory of what he had said the even¬ 
ing before in a group wholly outside the pale of poli¬ 
tics was continuing with Lang. He had not made a 
pledge—it was a silly thought, holding his words 
spoken in the Donworth circle as having any real 
bearing on his decision or his movements. 

Nevertheless, he did not feel just then like tying 
himself up to politicians by an actual pledge. He 
heard the judge through with interest and respect and 
was frankly earnest in his gratitude when he received 
from the spokesman a report of a meeting of city 
leaders the night before. 

“But give me a little more time,” he pleaded. 
“Judge, you can understand better than the rest of 
them what this step means to me as a lawyer in active 
practice.” 

“Means sacrifice, John! Now go ahead and disprove 
what old Doc Anson barked out. Says he’s willing to 
say the same thing to your face! That you’re selfish 
as hell!” 


THE GIRL WITH A PLEA 


55 


The patriarch grinned when he repeated the state¬ 
ment, treating it as a jest. But Lang was convulsed 
by sudden and raging resentment. The lawyer kicked 
back his chair and stamped up and down the office, 
cursing roundly. 

“I didn’t realize you had any sore spot of that kind 
in you, John!” The judge wagged his head in mild 
reproof. “I can’t believe you truly have, either. I 
guess we’re hammering you a little too fast and hard 
in this matter. I told the boys we ought to give you 
more time, but they know how close you and I are 
and they thought they’d get the worry off their minds.” 

“I’m a fool to act and talk like this! I’m sorry, 
Judge Anderson. I don’t know what the matter is 
with me!” He had controlled his emotion. “I’ll talk 
sensibly with you a little later. I’ll come to you. 
I’m sorry I taxed your convenience and your dignity 
by making you feel that you must come to me.” 

“I was glad when they asked me—glad to have the 
opportunity to sound the duty call, my boy! Now 
think it over quietly—don’t get fussed up by it— 
drop around on me as soon as you see your way clear 
to do so.” He shook Lang’s hand and trudged out. 

The lawyer sat down and wondered why he had 
flashed into fury so precipitately. He had promptly 
quieted that riotous disturbance in himself to be sure, 
but his rancor still lingered. It even occurred to 
him to call Doctor Anson on the telephone and ask 
him what he meant by such a jibe. But he refrained. 
He was not just sure what retort he would make to 
the doctor if the latter repeated the statement. There 
were clients waiting in the reception room; he was not 
in a mood to receive anybody at that moment. 

The newspapers had got hold of something—report¬ 
ers had besieged his office early. Obeying his instruc- 


56 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


tions, his secretary had turned them away so they 
might not have any excuse on which to hang an 
alleged interview. 

For the sake of distraction, Lang picked up a morn¬ 
ing newspaper. He read a report of one of Andrew 
MacMurray’s meetings. That headlong aspirant had 
not waited till other candidates had announced them¬ 
selves; for months he had been canvassing and cam¬ 
paigning. 

Lang knew MacMurray by court association only; 
the young man was a lawyer who was as fiery in speech 
before the bar as he was violent in his forensics in the 
city’s rally halls. 

He was an of, by and for the people champion. He 
was making a great handle of the fact that all the 
vested interests were against him and he made it a 
point to declaim word for word all the newspaper slurs 
aimed at him. He told his auditors he was afraid 
they might miss something, otherwise! He made an 
especially strong point in declaring that the news¬ 
papers, owned by the rich as all men knew, were 
trying to kill him off because he was determined to 
stand for the poor against the tyranny of the rich. 

Demagoguery! It was in every line of MacMur¬ 
ray’s speech, as Lang ran through it. But in his 
thoughts Lang was doing MacMurray justice as a 
vote-getter; that crackling, compelling personality 
who opened his arms, his mouth—his heart, apparently 
—before the people, MacMurray did possess die genius 
of leadership! 

Lang doubted his own ability to warm up adherents 
in the class of voters to whom MacMurray was mak¬ 
ing an especial appeal. He was not conscious of any 
inherent priggishness, but he remembered with distaste 
his experiences when he campaigned for a friend— 


THE GIRL WITH A PLEA 


57 


going into saloons and beer clubs in the old days when 
there were such institutions for the herding of the 
proletariat in convenient roundups. 

He threw the newspaper into the wastebasket and 
pushed the button which signalled to his clerk that 
he would receive a client. A person was promptly 
ushered in. 

Lang uttered an ejaculation and leaped from his 
chair when he saw Mavis Duncan. That morning, as 
usual, he had admitted himself to his private office 
from the corridor, using his pass key, avoiding clients. 
To be the first in line she must have been waiting a 
long time. She admitted it when he inquired, placing 
a chair for her close to his desk. 

The soft radiance of the floor lamp, the evening 
before, had not flattered her beauty, he noted, when 
he surveyed her in the frank light of the morning. She 
was more interesting because her eyes revealed 
troubled thoughts, because there was a suggestion of 
awed fright in her manner. John Lang was a skilled 
examiner. He knew the art of putting client or wit¬ 
ness at ease—in order to extract more surely what he 
was after. 

“I have come-” she stammered. She tried to 

hurry her words, she choked. 

“Not on business of law, surely!” he cried, laughing. 

She shook her head. 

“Of course not!” His cordiality was tuned by the 
peculiar interest he felt in this unusual girl. “You 
have dropped in to talk some more with me about the 
Chaudiere—you have thought of—well, let’s say about 
the broad water above the falls of the Racing Horse. 
You must have been there—where the pines sing. I 
camped there once. I’m homesick, too, when I think 
of it.” 



58 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“I don’t dare think too much about it—not now, 
sir. I am too bold in coming to you as I have done! 
I am not like myself, as I was at home.” It was plain 
enough that the long period of waiting had had its 
full effect on her morale. She glanced around her in 
that formal, four-walled pen of tiered books, and trem¬ 
bled. “Now that I’m here, I don’t dare. It’s insane. 
You will pity me for my folly if I dare tell you.” 

“Miss Duncan, I am more sure of your courage 
than you appear to be. You will tell me why you have 
come to me.” 

“It’s on account of what you said last night, Mr. 
Lang. About the mayoralty. You spoke as if it 
means nothing to you.” 

“Nor does it, when I consult my personal inclina¬ 
tions.” He was displaying acute interest and con¬ 
siderable astonishment. 

“But it has a tremendous interest for me, sir. Oh, 
I know nothing about politics,” she hastened to assure 
him, anticipating his question. “I’m a stranger in this 
city—an alien, as you know. But Mr. Stewart says 
you’ll be elected if you become a candidate.” 

“I’m grateful for such a compliment.” 

“But what you are tossing away as of no account— 
it’s greater than life or death for—for somebody else. 
Mr. Lang, I cannot explain fully to you. It might 
seem silly because I place so much importance on my 
personal reason. Set against the big matter, it might 

seem a trivial thing. But because it’s my own-” 

She looked away from him to hide her tears. “I don’t 
intend to make it that sort of an appeal, however. I 
beg your pardon, sir!” 

“It is my business to listen when folks are in any 
trouble. I can understand if you’ll explain, Miss 
Duncan.” 



THE GIRL WITH A PLEA 


59 


“If I tell you my real reason I’ll seem to you like a 
wheedling cry-baby, making an appeal to your gener¬ 
osity. They talk so much about that quality in you, 
sir! You have defended so many poor folks in court! 
I’ll not take advantage of it.” She showed pride and 
fresh courage. “What you said last night did, at the 
time, give me an excuse to come to you—at any rate, 
I have been feeling that it did. I’m not so sure, now 
when I’m here! Did you mean what you said?” she 
asked anxiously. 

“Yes, I don’t care to be mayor of this city.” 

“If you stay out, doesn’t it mean that Andrew Mac- 
Murray will be elected?” 

He pulled himself forward in his chair and regarded 
her with grave, frowning intentness. He was rather 
puzzled by his quick twinge of resentment; why 
should he resent her interest in MacMurray, a man 
from her own North country? He felt he understood 
now, in spite of her reticence in regard to motives. 
He had uncovered a love affair—but he was in no mood 
to offer best wishes! Her woman’s clairvoyance de¬ 
tected the nature of his mood. 

“Don’t misunderstand, Mr. Lang! He is my 
brother. No, not my own brother. But we call him 
that. He is my cousin and my father took him into 
our family when he was a little boy—an orphan. But 
it isn’t simply on this account I’m hoping he’ll be 
the mayor.” 

“I must tell you I’m finding this perplexing, Miss 
Duncan. Cannot you be more straightforward?” 

“The other matter—my reason—has nothing to 
do with politics, sir. I repeat—if I make any appeal 
to you from my personal reasons it would seem like 
a woman’s unfair appeal to a man’s chivalry—I can¬ 
not do it!” 


60 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“You are asking me to give up the field to your 
cousin—that is, so far as I may do so by declining 
to run?” 

“I am taking you at your word. I thought, if you 
do not care for the honor, you might not allow them 
to influence you to be a candidate if you knew how 

—if you realized-” She was stammering. Again 

she looked away from his keen, appraising stare. She 
rose suddenly. “Now that I’m here, I understand 
how much of a fool I have made of myself, Mr. 
Lang. But it seemed so different after what you 
said—when I spent half the night going over the thing 
in my mind,” she confessed plaintively. “Desperate 
folly—it’s nothing else.” Her next words stirred vivid 
memory of his own weakness of the night before. “It 
is strange, isn’t it, sir, how we allow our little personal 
affairs to loom up and hide the big ones? And how 
ashamed we’d be to confess the real truth! I’ll hurry 
away. I’m sorry. I have only puzzled you and taken 
up your time.” 

He suddenly felt a warmer spirit of fraternity— 
her confession made her one of his own sort when he 
thought on how he had turned his back on affairs of 
moment in order to follow unworthy impulse. “Will 
you please come back and sit down, Miss Duncan?” 
It was earnest appeal. He was gentle with her—dis¬ 
armingly so; but he went relentlessly ahead to get 
facts, using his talent as the best cross-examiner at 
the bar of his State. “You came here today wholly 
on your own initiative, did you?” 

“Yes, sir!” 

“I am not going to pry into your secret reasons, 
after what you have said to me. But where your 
cousin is concerned—that’s in the field of politics. 
Does he know you were coming here to-” 



THE GIRL WITH A PLEA 


61 


“No—no!” she cried, her denial convincing. 

“Has he discussed me with you?” 

“Never, Mr. Lang. He does not talk to me about 
politics.^ He knows I do not understand—and you 
know it" now!” Her distressful grimace was not with¬ 
out humor. 

He sat in silence for some time. He wanted to 
attack that barrier of her personal reasons in spite of 
his promise. His zeal as an investigator was roused. 
He was aware of taking a lively interest in this girl. 
It occurred to him, trying to estimate her motives, 
that her ambition was prompting her—her desire to 
pursue her studies. Was she depending on her cousin 
to finance her projected career? 

This was a singular situation—this injection of the 
personal element into a municipal campaign. Under 
other circumstances he would have viewed it as belong¬ 
ing in the class which she had termed “desperate 
folly.” 

But he was sympathizing with her—once again he 
was allowing a small affair to cloud his judgment in 
regard to a greater matter. He felt an impulse, looking 
on her distress, touched by her courage in venturing 
so valiantly, to offer his services, even if it should be 
to the rash extent of justifying her belief in his word 
about the mayoralty. 

For the first time in his life he was moved by a 
distinct yearning to comfort a woman, even as he 
would offer to relieve the sorrow of a child—to caress 
her cheek, to encircle her with a consolatory arm—and 
he was not conscious of any disloyalty to what he 
termed real love in the case of the self-sufficient Reba 
Donworth. 

He was sure he could not allow the girl to go away 
without a more complete understanding. He was still 


62 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


insisting in his inner thoughts that the proffered honor 
meant little to him—would mean less if he could under¬ 
stand why she found the matter so vital in her affairs. 
To put the great question of a mayoralty campaign— 

He was interrupted in his ponderings by a dis¬ 
turbance in the outer office—a man was shouting 
demands to be admitted immediately to the presence 
of Lang. 

Mavis turned ghastly white and terror flamed in her 
eyes. It was Andrew MacMurray outside—there was 
no mistaking his voice; his tones had rung in court, 
on street corners, in rally halls, till all the city knew 
the timbre. 

Lang went to the door and flung it wide. “You may 
come in, sir!” 

MacMurray’s naturally florid face was colored more 
deeply by the hues of anger. His pale eyes glit¬ 
tered; his shock of sandy hair was rampant like a 
mane. He addressed himself to Mavis, who was stand¬ 
ing when he stamped in. “You will go home—at 
once!” He swung arm, head, his whole body in his 
gesture of dismissal. But Lang closed the door. 

“Keep your voice down, if you please!” 

“Mavis, why did you dare to come here—to submit 
yourself to snubs? I know the nature of John Lang!” 

Lang walked slowly to the vociferous rebuker. 

“It is not exactly essential—but I’d like to be in¬ 
formed how you happen to be here, MacMurray?” 

“A friend came to my office and said she was wait¬ 
ing to see you—he saw her here. It’s without my 
sanction, sir.” 

“She expressly informed me to that effect,” stated 
the lawyer. He made himself her protector and 
warmed with the thought that he could shield her. 
“Miss Duncan and I began a very charming acquaint- 


THE GIRL WITH A PLEA 


63 


ance last evening and some words I uttered then gave 
her a good excuse to have business here with me 
today in my office.” 

“1 know what’s afoot in this city in politics. I 
won’t have it that one who is as dear as she is shall 
be misunderstood for my sake. Mavis,” he went on, 
his voice breaking, “I realize—but it’s not the job 
for a girl! Where’s the pride of your race?” 

“I should not have come—I know it, Andy! But 
it seemed—I thought-” 

“I know! The blood of the clan spoke in you. But 
I won’t stand for any sacrifice of that sort.” 

He turned to Lang. “Sir, I’m putting the very life 
of me into this campaign. I owe a debt—I can see 
a way to pay—but though you drag my tongue from 
its roots I’ll not explain that side to you or to any 
other man in this city. I’ll fight fair—I’ll win fair! 
I want no odds of sentiment. You know well I’m a 
candidate!” 

“Nobody in this city has any doubts about that!” 
retorted the lawyer. 

“It’s a fair question, then! Are you also a candi¬ 
date, according to reports?” 

The girl’s eyes were pleading. 

But arrogance, defiance and challenge were brist¬ 
ling in the antagonist who had stormed in—standing 
there, snapping his eyelids, breathing noisily through 
distended nostrils. Nevertheless, Lang hesitated, un¬ 
willing to allow resentment to bias his judgment or 
drive him to wound the girl. 

“I demand an answer,” went on the challenger 
uncompromisingly. He was unable to change, even in 
the privacy of that office, the tactics which he had 
adopted for his campaign—“his fight” he insisted on 
calling it. He had found that the people responded 



64 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


with more fervor when he said he was fighting for 
them. “I am out in the open, John Lang. My 
candidacy was not hatched out of a golden egg laid 
by a capitalistic goose in a back room. I am not 
afraid of the selfish interests. I ask no odds, I say. 
The people are with me.” 

“Just a moment!” Lang protested. “A stump speech 
will not impress me.” 

“Let us go, Andy!” the girl urged. 

“Not till I’m answered! Not till he comes out in 
the open! Are you still hiding in the back room, 
Lang?” 

“MacMurray, you have gone far enough!” Lang 
was baited in the presence of one whose good opinion 
he sought, so he was now owning to himself. The 
bumptious Scotchman was imputing cowardice. “You, 
yourself, have failed to come into the open, as you 
call it. I beg your pardon, Miss Duncan! But I 
still remain in the dark. If there’s a good reason why 
politics should take second place at this time I ought 
to be informed for my guidance.” 

“You shall speak to him no more of private con¬ 
cerns,” commanded the cousin, rolling the r’s sonor¬ 
ously. “You’d be bending the knee. Where’s your 
pride, I say? Lang, I’ve never been fooled by the 
nickname that calls you generous.” MacMurray was 
going rapidly to extremes. “You got good advertising 
when you didn’t get fees!” 

Again the hateful taunt of selfishness! The second 
time that day—once in jest and now in earnest! 
Lang’s eyebrows met and red flared on his cheeks. He 
addressed Mavis. “I’m sorry, but you’re most unfor¬ 
tunate in having this sort of a relative.” 

“I take the brunt!” cried the irreconcilable. “Do 
you announce yourself?” 


THE GIRL WITH A PLEA 65 

“Not to you, sir! My friends have the exclusive 
right to my confidence.” 

“Very well! Good morning!” 

MacMurray put his hand on Mavis’s arm. She 
shook off his hold and went close to Lang. “I am 
coming back into my saner senses, sir. I must have 
been insane when I came down here. I hope you’ll 
pardon me—and forget me and my poor affairs.” 

She put out her hand and he took it and retained 
it while he replied. “It’s easy to obey you, in part 
of your request. But I shall not forget you, and my 
hope is I may be able to help you in your affairs some 
day. I talked rather recklessly last evening. There 
are duties and obligations-” 

“I understand better, sir.” 

“Come, Mavis! There’s nothing to be gained,” 
stormed the cousin. 

“It’s my pledge—that I will help you!” Lang was 
deeply earnest. “I shall find the opportunity—that’s 
prophecy!” He smiled at her and released her hand. 

MacMurray banged the door after them. 

Lang blinked, as if the slam had been an explosion 
of a weapon. Then his frown settled into an expres¬ 
sion of grim determination. He called Judge Ander¬ 
son on the telephone. 

“I’m starting for your office, sir. I’m giving you 
this bit of notice because you may wish to call in our 
advisers to help in framing an announcement for the 
newspapers. I’ll be glad to serve as a candidate for 
mayor.” 

After he hung back the receiver he gazed down at 
the floor for a long time. The flame of his anger 
faded out of his cheeks. He wagged his head with the 
air of a man who was regretting a rash decision. “Damn 
MacMurray!” he muttered. “Damn his tongue!” 


CHAPTER SEVEN 
The Twist Bit 


ANG did not bother to reflect that it was a 
peculiarly infelicitous time, on the heels 
of MacMurray’s call, to attend to Serenus 
Trask’s commands in regard to the dis¬ 
ciplining of a nephew. On the contrary, 
the attorney felt in exactly the properly violent mood 
to jam the young man’s nose down hard on to the 
grindstone of circumstances. 

The lawyer let all scruples go by the board. He 
lumped his personal animosity in with the more legiti¬ 
mate business of the lord of the Double T, deciding 
that by his check to charity he had thrown off the 
fetters of Trask money and could act according to 
the promptings of ordinary human nature. 

He called the Talisman Club, got in touch with 
young Trask and ordered that half-reluctant gentle¬ 
man to make haste in getting to the Lang law office. 
After he had arranged his papers in the case, Lang 
laid them on the table in the centre of the office, 
planted his hands, palms down, on either side of the 
little stack of sheets and sat in his chair and waited, 
as stiff and grim as a wooden idol. 

There had been urge, menace and bodefulness—all 
three—in Lang’s tone when he commanded Trask to 
hurry, and the lawyer was not kept waiting long. 
There was no hold-up in the outer office—the clerk 
had been apprised. A chair had been placed for the 
caller at the table, opposite Lang. Trask sat in it at 
66 











THE TWIST BIT 


67 


the lawyer’s curt request, and endeavored to copy 
the stiffly upright attitude of the other; but under 
Lang’s ominous stare, the younger man began to slump, 
propping his elbows on the arms of the chair. The 
attorney wasted no time. 

“Our business today has nothing to do with what 
we have been discussing lately. We have wasted 
altogether too much time on that nonsense. It is not a 
matter to be mentioned between us again.” 

He paused. He had just paid well, he felt, for the 
privilege of being free to handle Skiddy Trask as 
inclination prompted. His mood had no mercy in it. 
He decided to strike with the bludgeon of facts—to 
stun his man and tie him at leisure. 

“Your Uncle Serenus is married!” 

Serenus, the Second, blinked dizzily; but it was 
immediately evident that his scepticism was too hard 
a shell to be cracked by any such blow. He shook 
his head and started to say something, but Lang hit 
him again, with the information-cudgel, while Trask 
was still groggy. “And you’re going to be married— 
at once—to a woman he has picked out for you! ” 

“It’s all something you have rigged up, as you 
threatened you’d do.” 

“I knew nothing about either matter till your uncle 
informed me.” 

“You lie!” 

Lang promptly satisfied an itching which had been 
in his palm for several days—for weeks, in fact, ever 
since he had seen Skiddy Trask talking so earnestly to 
Reba at the dances. He half rose, leaned across the 
table and slapped Trask across the face with a vigor 
which nearly stunned the assaulted man. The lawyer 
had his hand poised again when Trask straightened 
himself in his chair. 


68 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“Do you care to follow the discussion any farther 
along the lines you just chose, Mister Trask?” 

“I can’t believe-” 

“You can believe— I’m telling you!” Lang slapped 
his breast with the admonitory palm. “I’m telling 
you because I’m directed to tell you, acting as your 
uncle’s attorney. I repeat—and I propose to have 
no more comments on my authority or my truthfulness 
—your uncle is married.” 

“I didn’t mean what I said to you—but you jumped 
me,” quavered the nephew. “May I ask who she is 
—his wife—where she came from?” 

“I know nothing about that. But I have seen her. 
She’s his wife, all right!” 

The attorney proceeded briskly with the duty im¬ 
posed on him. “As to your chosen wife—the woman 
you’re going to marry—she is the daughter of the 
late Jonas Blake, so many years your uncle’s rival 
in the North country. The marriage settles the feud 
and unites great interests. So, you see how impossible 
it will be for you to squirm out of it.” He noted how 
thoroughly he had Trask cowed and Lang sat back 
in his chair. “We may consider all the marriage stuff 
settled.” 

“I’m not talking now to you, Lang—keep your 
hands off me! But I’m saying to all, I’ll never marry 
that woman, whoever she is. I’ll never-” 

Lang put up his hand in compelling fashion and 
checked the outburst. Then he shuffled the papers 
on the table. 

“I had a long conference with your uncle last even¬ 
ing, sir. The matter of possible stubbornness on your 
part was considered. I just spoke the whole truth 
when I said the marriages—both of them—are your 
uncle’s arrangements, and he did not consult me. But 




THE TWIST BIT 


69 


as to certain other procedure in regard to you, he did 
consult me, and I advised him, as his lawyer, how you 
could be constrained to obey, and that part of the 
thing is my doing. This is a day for the truth!” 

There was satisfied malevolence in Lang’s manner. 
He said coldly, “You ought to have known better than 
to trespass, Mister Trask. You’re getting what’s due 
to come to you! ” 

“And that’s how you’re using your power in the law, 
is it?” 

“That’s how I’m using it in this case. Your uncle 
has invested money to make you what you are, and 
now, so he says, he intends to use the investment. 
Are you sufficiently grateful to obey him?” 

“I won’t marry the woman.” 

“Very well! We’ll assume that you continue to 
persist in such ingratitude! 

“In the new testament which I have drafted and 
which will be executed today, you are formally men¬ 
tioned to cover the law and to guard against attempts 
to break the will. You receive one dollar in cash. 
You’ll recollect, possibly, how your uncle exacted notes 
from you each time he settled those affairs for which 
your allowance did not suffice. The notes are scheduled 
in the will and the cancellation of them will constitute 
your inheritance, on the ground that you have received 
your share of the estate. Legally sound, and proof 
against shyster lawyers! 

“Therefore, as you stand before the world just now, 
you have one dollar coming to you—when your uncle 
dies. He’s looking extremely healthy. Unless, by 

tomorrow, your engagement to Miss Maravista-” 

he dwelt on the name, and Skiddy winced—“Mara¬ 
vista Blake is announced, your allowance stops. It 
seems she has agreed to let your uncle make the 



70 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


announcement. When your engagement is settled upon, 
one-quarter of the allowance starts. After the day of 
the wedding you’ll get one-half the allowance, being on 
probation to see whether you’re making her happy. 
The rest of the money for your support will be given 
you by your wife from her estate, your uncle managing 
the estate for her, and handing her the money. 

“But you must ask your wife for the money, doing 
so in writing, and she must turn the letters over to your 
uncle in order that he may judge of your devotion by 
their style. The idea is, young man, that when the 
Double T and the Tulandic are joined by your mar¬ 
riage there must be great harmony, and no possibility 
of a divorce. If your wife is still happy at the time of 
your uncle’s death, a codicil lets you in for a share 
of his estate. If she isn’t happy, you will be in a 
bad way, young Mister Trask! For you’ll have noth¬ 
ing from your uncle. And an unhappy wife will not 
be generous with you. Understand, do you?” 

“And you say you planned it?” 

“I planned it—and all legal safeguards will be 
attended to. The whole thing affords you an oppor¬ 
tunity to show your uncle how much you value the 
easy life he has given you—and will continue to give 
you, if you come half way with him.” The lawyer’s 
new, suave and patronizing tone did not agree with 
the triumphant, challenging glitter in the gray eyes. 
“Your uncle directs me to tell you this! If you go 
storming to him he’ll break all relations with you, 
switch off the Blake marriage and leave you flat. 
You know him too well to take chances. So, if you 
have any rebellious talk to make, let me have it, here 
and now.” 

■ Trask grasped the edge of the table and slowly 
pulled himself up out of the chair. “Yesterday in the 


THE TWIST BIT 


71 


club you told me to wait till I had something to say 
before talking to you.” 

“That was my proposition. I have no time to waste.” 

Trask stumbled to the door and turned there, his 
hand on the knob. “I’ll not take up your time right 
now, Mr. Lang. Perhaps what I have to say isn’t of 
any importance, anyway. And I don’t seem to have 
the words handy. But I can say a little! ” 

He had been twisting his Fedora hat in his hands 
while he sat at the table. He held it tightly rolled in 
his clutch. He shook it at Lang. 

“When I do talk to you, Lang, it will be at the right 
place and time, and then you’ll wish to God you had 
torn my tongue out here today instead of only slapping 
my face. You’re going to be sorry!” 

John Lang was not discomposed by the hysterical 
threat. After Trask had gone away, the lawyer 
allowed himself a moment to take account of stock. 
He did admit to himself his human animus in the 
affair of Reba, but he was sure that, as the elder 
Trask’s attorney, he had a right to make the younger 
Trask amenable to the wishes of a benefactor. He 
could not bring himself to believe that the tongue of 
Skiddy Trask could harm John Lang, professionally, 
politically or socially, or that anything Trask could 
say would harass the conscience of a man who was 
so certain of his own rectitude in his profession. 
Therefore, he promptly closed his mental door on 
Skiddy’s affairs. 

He pushed a buzzer, summoned his stenographer 
and proceeded to put the will of Serenus Trask into 
legal shape. In the late afternoon that important client 
walked into Lang’s office. 

“Let’s see! It was sort of agreed, wasn’t it, how 
you’d bring the will and the papers out to the house 


72 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


this evening?” Trask, asking the question, gave the 
lawyer a searching stare. 

“Yes, sir!” 

“Perfectly willing to come?” The trick eye was 
boring Lang. 

“Entirely willing!” There may have been a touch 
of too much fervor in the lawyer’s consent. At any 
rate, old Double T did not look very hospitable just 
then. 

“I’m not going to bother you to that extent, Lang. 
I’m willing to do a part of the running—and besides, 
I’ve had to come down town to order a flock of suits 
from that tailor. I’ll execute the will and get my 
copies of the other documents.” 

Lang understood; more than ever was the old man’s 
jealousy assuming the nature of senile mania. They 
went through with the routine of the business in hand. 
Even when they were checking up the stipulations in 
regard to young Trask, the old man continued to be 
reticent on the question of his nephew’s state of mind. 
The uncle had put no questions in regard to the nature 
of the lawyer’s session with “the investment.” 

Lang finally approached the topic by asking whether 
young Trask had ventured to break over the strict 
orders and intrude on the honeymoon privacy of the 
mansion. 

“Oh, yes! He ran out to see me after his chat with 
you,” stated Trask with much serenity. “As I was 
telling you last night, you’re a great lawyer. You 
earn your money.” 

“I’m wondering why you didn’t mention his call 
till now.” 

“Nothing special to mention! Boy seemed to be 
all right. Said he was much surprised, but hoped I 
had a good wife. Didn’t let him see her, though. He’s 


THE TWIST BIT 


73 


too foolish where girls are concerned. Young fellows 
are inclined that way these days.” He gave Lang 
another sharp glance. “Even fellows who are well 
balanced other ways!” 

“Look here, Mr. Trask, do you mean to tell me he 
came out to your house and was sensible?” 

“He must have had all his tantrum out here with 
you. You tamed him. Knew you could. Glad I left 
it to you. Had a drink and nice chat, and I gave him 
a thousand so he can make a regular pleasure trip of 
it.” 

“A trip to where?” demanded Lang with consider¬ 
able violence. 

“North country! Tulandic, I suppose, seeing I took 
a lot of pains in telling him how to get there. Got to 
court a girl before you can marry her right, you know! 
Seemed to be anxious to get away. Took the noon 
train. Oh, he knows a good thing. Didn’t show him 
her picture, though. No need of dulling the pleasure 
he’ll take while making the trip up-country. Marriage 
is in the air these days, eh?” 

The old man reached out his stubby thumb and 
prodded Lang and reminded the lawyer that gossip 
gave him a lass of his own. There was sly malice in 
Trask’s joviality. Lang perceived that gossip had been 
generous in its giving. 

“You tackled your end of the log mighty well— 
mighty well, Lang!” chuckled the old lumberman. “It 
was a case of needing the two of us to roll it, each 
having a damn good reason for spitting on his hands 
and using a lot of muscle.” 

He paid no attention to Lang’s scowl of protest; the 
lawyer had done his best to lift himself out of the 
plain dirt of the business; he had gone to extremes 
to ease his conscience—making that donation to char- 


74 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


ity. This coarse tyrant had a viewpoint that took 
account only of the natural motives of jealousy. His 
thrust had touched a sore spot in Lang. 

Trask swung away and started for the door. “If 
anybody tries to steal your woman, hell-rasp him! 
What else can he expect, Lang? Hell-rasp him!” 

Anxious though he was to be rid of this human file 
on a raw conscience, Lang called entreatingly, detain¬ 
ing old Double T. This sudden supineness of young 
Trask was distinctly not reassuring; furthermore, old 
Trask had not uncovered the situation frankly. Lang 
knew the style of his client and believed there must 
be something behind the uncle’s airy assurance that 
Skiddy was reconciled. 

“And you say he has gone to Tulandic?” persisted 
the attorney. 

Old Double T confronted Lang and squinted the 
wall-eye in a particularly evil grimace. “Damn it, 
I’ve sent him there—and you ought to be devilish glad 
to have him out from under your feet. Now smooth 
off that sour look, my friend! He won’t be coming 
back to bother you, because-” 

Serenus Trask dropped all his playful guile and 
came out with the brutal facts. “That young whelp 
had the impudence to stand up to me! The infernal 
nerve to tell me what he wanted! Wants your girl, 
Lang! Why didn’t you beat him up before this? 
But I can hit hard, even if you can’t. I took no chances 
when I sent him North. I sent along with him a couple 
of keepers! That’s what they are— keepers . My 
men follow my orders! If he goes and does the proper 
high-betty-martin tiptoe to Maravista Blake—all well 
and good! I can then cash in on him as the gentle¬ 
man my money has made him. If he bucks up, those 
keepers have my orders to make him anything they 



THE TWIST BIT 


75 


feel like making him. A potato peeling cookee! A 
manure heaver in a hoss hovel! He had the gall to 
stand up and tell me what he wanted!” raved the 
uncle. “Only heir of the Double T, hey? Well, by 
God, I’ll have him dragged through all the muck and 
mud of the Double T lands till he does what I tell him 
to do—and be damnation glad to do it!” 

He stamped out of the office, flourishing his hands 
over his head. An impulse surged in Lang, a decent 
and manly impulse. He rose and followed Trask, 
urging him to mitigate the ferocity of the sentence. 
But the tyrant flung an oath over his shoulder and 
departed. 

Lang went back to his desk and tried to put the 
whole thing out of his reckoning, as an affair wholly 
between uncle and recalcitrant nephew. But remorse 
troubled him; and with remorse was mingled a queer, 
prophetic apprehensiveness, based on his lawyer’s 
study of weak characters under the pressure of in¬ 
tolerable conditions. Were Skiddy Trask more of a 
man he might be able to endure. But in the unstable 
qualities of the fellow who had always followed his 
fancies and had yielded to his bent, John Lang per¬ 
ceived the possibilities of reckless mischief later on. 


CHAPTER EIGHT 
The New Mayor 



CCORDING to appearances, John Lang 
regarded the mayoralty campaign as a 
rather inconsiderable affair and roused 
extremely varied emotions among the 
voters by his attitude. He was willing 
to make only one speech—in the city’s largest hall, 
saying he would declare his policies at that time, on 
the eve of the election. 

Everybody considered the campaign a peculiar one. 
Some persons found it pathetic. One man was strug¬ 
gling so frenziedly to clutch something upon which 
a rival plainly placed not a farthing’s value! 

One man urged and pleaded and ran his legs off. 
The other smiled and allowed his friends to do his 
talking for him. It seemed to be simply another case 
of the Fate-favored man who had everything and was 
getting still more in spite of himself. 

Lang was not as easy in his mind as he appeared 
to be, but that was not because of any worry about 
the election. He wondered why one especial matter 
disturbed him so constantly. His experience as a 
criminal lawyer might account in part, he pondered. 
Any mystery which involved his attention kept troub¬ 
ling him until it was solved. The personality of Mavis 
Duncan had interested him, though he was far from 
admitting his concern for her and her affairs to be 
anything more than rather lively curiosity to know 
exactly what peculiar and specific interest in the 
mayoralty matter had urged her to venture into his 
76 









THE NEW MAYOR 


77 


office. He was sure her reasons were interesting and 
were not sordid, and he pondered much on the thing— 
unable to put her out of his thoughts. One day he 
seized upon an opportunity, anxious to rid himself of 
distracting puzzlement. 

Rain or shine, it was Lang’s custom to go vigorously 
afoot about his affairs in the city, his hale strength dis¬ 
daining vehicles. He saw MacMurray often, also on 
foot, as a true friend of the plain people should go. 
There was no hint of compromise in the hard features 
of the fighting Scot. After a time something like 
hatred was mingled with MacMurray’s air of defiance. 

One day Lang stopped his rival on the street—he 
was obliged to put out a barring arm to check Mac¬ 
Murray’s rush past him. It was a quiet street—there 
were no eavesdroppers, and Lang took advantage of 
the opportunity offered. 

“I’m sorry to have any animosity playing a part in 
this thing, MacMurray. I’m sorry-” 

“And you hate to be sorry, eh? Sorrow annoys you, 
does it? A selfish man does flinch when anything 
disturbs his peace of mind, Lang! Bah!” 

But Lang held his temper and preserved his smile; 
this tolerant and patronizing demeanor served to in¬ 
furiate the rival still more. He clinched his fists and 
damned Lang roundly. Lang, intrepid, insistent, put 
his hand on MacMurray’s shoulder. “I don’t intend 
to talk politics with you. You are not in the right 
state of mind. But this affair doesn’t seem to me 
important enough to rouse all the hatred you are 
showing.” 

“It isn’t important to you—so you keep saying— 
and that’s why you’ve got me going, Lang.” 

“Ah! You admit you’re on the run?” 

“Yesl You’re taking something as carelessly as 


78 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


you’d accept a cigar—something as precious to me as 
a drink of ice-water in hell would be.” 

“But if I could understand better- It’s a deli¬ 

cate subject, MacMurray, but if you would intimate 
why your cousin-” 

“Lay off that, Lang! Right now I’m in a devilish 
state of mind where she’s concerned. Don’t you dare 
talk to me on the subject. I’ll forget myself!” 

He jerked his shoulder from under Lang’s restrain¬ 
ing palm and went on his way, muttering. And the 
lawyer was left with a deepened mystery to consider. 
Therefore, Mavis Duncan persisted in his thoughts 
even more distractingly. 

Whenever he called on Reba Donworth, and he had 
dropped back into a tolerant and tacit truce with Reba, 
he lingered in the corridor in the hope of hearing the 
voice which had charmed him. Occasionally he was 
fortunate. Then he heard her no more. 

He did not venture to allude to Mavis when he was 
with Reba; he kept off the subject just as sedulously 
as he refrained from mentioning young Trask or dis¬ 
cussing the rival’s protracted absence from the city. 
His questionable standing with Reba was not to be 
further imperilled by rash topics. 

One evening in the course of conversation he gos¬ 
siped on the safer subject of the current campaign and 
mentioned the fact that MacMurray was spending 
considerable money, more than a man in his circum¬ 
stances could afford, so folks thought. 

“He may have more to spend on himself,” sug¬ 
gested Reba drily. “Mavis Duncan has given up her 
studies and has gone home. It’s a shame—she had 
wonderful prospects.” 

He was glad because the subject had been opened 
—troubled by the news he heard. “Then MacMurray 



THE NEW MAYOR 


79 


was paying her way—and too selfish to spare enough 
for her from his foolish campaign!” he blurted with 
some heat. 

“I think it’s hardly the right way to put it,” cor¬ 
rected Reba, surveying him with no especial degree of 
favor. “I have only a few hints—which the Stewarts 
dropped, but—she called on you in your office, didn’t 
she, John?” 

He bowed. 

“It was a very bitter experience, so I should judge, 
from what I hear about her grief and her regret be¬ 
cause she allowed herself to do anything like that.” 

“I resent your blame, if that’s what you’re trying to 
convey. She would not explain to me—I could do 
nothing for her.” 

“It seems what you declared here one evening mis¬ 
led her,” stated Reba, her composure unruffled. “She 
seemed to be a naive girl. She believed, probably, 
that you meant what you said. I’m sorry she and I 
were not better friends. I could have warned her. I 
wish you would not blame poor MacMurray. As I 
gather from what little the Stewarts say on the sub¬ 
ject Miss Duncan went away without any word to 
her cousin. She felt, probably, he needed all the money 
for his own ambition, so she gave up hers. I judge 
there’s been considerable mutual sacrifice in the family 
for some time.” 

Lang was able to understand better what the hatred 
in MacMurray’s face signified. He did not relish the 
expression he saw on Reba’s countenance. He abruptly 
made his adieus to her and her mother and went away. 

On the night before election day a gale drove a 
sleety winter rain athwart the city. There was cheer 
in the ranks of the MacMurray followers. The poor 
folks believed the kid glove voters would stay away 


80 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


from the polls, fearing to get wet. The weather bureau 
predicted that the rain would continue during election 
day. 

But the clouds were raced away by the morning gale 
and election day was crisply bright. 

John Lang was elected. 

He dodged away by himself in the late evening and 
took a long walk. He was not elated. Apprehending 
the difficulties of the task ahead of him, he had known 
he would not be elated! He was prepared for the mood 
of dull resignation which settled on him as he strode 
along the streets, his face hidden by the ulster collar 
which he had turned up as a shield against the nip of 
the air. 

But there was some sort of a regret deeper than that 
which he had anticipated and was prepared for. He 
was admitting, for one thing, that MacMurray was 
honest enough and, even as he had spent his hard- 
earned money, would have given himself unstintedly to 
the duties of the office—knew more people and could 
understand their needs better. 

Lang did not feel the supporting consciousness of 
having made any noble sacrifice. 

MacMurray, when he had launched into his spend¬ 
ing career, had placarded the city’s dead walls and bill¬ 
boards with his portrait. The wind and rain had 
played queer havoc with the pictured face. The twisted 
sheets distorted his features; Lang saw MacMurray 
sneering, scowling, making up faces of suffering in 
defeat because he had been bulwarked by faith in 
himself and in the promised support of the masses. 

But mostly, in spite of the ridiculous idea that a 
girl’s affairs could be permitted to influence politics 
in a big city, Lang found himself once more weighing 
the mysterious interests of Mavis Duncan, and he was 


THE NEW MAYOR 


81 


plagued by the problem and oppressed by what he 
knew was the denial of some vital need in her life. 

The face, the mien, the tones of that girl absorbed 
his thoughts. He wondered what such persisting ob¬ 
session signified! He made it merely a matter of 
mental calculation, oblivious to any self-hint that this 
might be something which concerned the heart instead 
of the brain. 

John Lang was still pitifully ignorant in matters of 
the heart! 


CHAPTER NINE 
At Home With The Trasks 


RENUS SKIDMORE TRASK, baron of 
the Double T, openly, even flamboyantly, 
brought his wife to the stone house in the 
city! This was in March. He tendered 
a formal “At Home” reception. Motor 
cars trailed in slow procession to the radiant entrance 
of the canopy, and fur-wrapped figures alighted and 
were engulfed in the maw of the striped canvas cor¬ 
ridor stretched from the mansion’s broad portal to 
the curb. 

Music throbbed within doors. All the windows of 
the house shed glory into the night. The arriving 
guests, curiously staring, buzzing sotto voce comments, 
were evidently finding an element of the bizarre in the 
affair, rather than viewing it as a reception on the 
conventional plane. From what was said in the con¬ 
fidence of the limousines, it seemed as if curiosity 
rather than social favor for the host had influenced 
many of those who had responded to invitations. 

One humorist, gazing at the glowing mansion from 
the window of his car, averred that it reminded him of 
a night-blooming cereus party assembled to watch the 
plant perform its first, last and only turn in the blos¬ 
soming line. 

Since late autumn there had been rumors in the 
city that Trask had been married, somewhere, and had 
brought his bride on at least one fleeting visit to the 
stone house. But the bleak mansion, behind the black- 
growth trees, had given no sign during the winter that 
82 















AT HOME WITH THE TRASKS 


83 


it housed a bride, and nobody in the roster of Trask’s 
acquaintances had been able to get much definite infor¬ 
mation. 

Then had followed weeks when the only folks in the 
house were carpenters, painters, decorators and other 
workers of the guilds of refurbishers. There was no 
concealment of the work of making over the house. 
All the pines and the spruces masking the structure 
were leveled by the axe. The cantdog was ripped off 
the front door. The logs which had wainscoted the 
master’s den were pushed out of the windows and 
were hauled away. Everything in the house which 
suggested Trask’s interest in the forest had been 
cleared out. A carpenter lugged off the stuffed loup- 
cervier; he did not care particularly for its hideous 
physog, but the thing did not cost him anything and 
he had a weakness for loot of that sort. 

The rumor about a bride having been in the house 
before the work of renovation was begun was swept 
entirely out of sight by the known fact of the return 
of the Trasks from the South. 

If Serenus Skidmore Trask had once believed in 
concealment of the treasure he had found, he held to 
such a belief no longer. He flaunted the possession of 
the glorious young creature who had become Mrs. 
Trask. The Trask limousine daily traversed all the 
principal streets and went slowly, and the ravishing 
face behind the polished glass was seen by all. Posted 
beside the wife was Trask, always. He glanced from 
side to side, enjoying the stares of the multitude. 
His wall-eye glowed with pride. 

In that transformation of his whole nature, in his 
shift from secretiveness to prideful publicity, he was 
as prodigal with his invitations to the “At Home” as 
the patronesses of a charity ball would have been. 


84 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Mayor John Lang received his own personal sur¬ 
prise in connection with that reception: Reba Don- 
worth wrote him a little note, saying she would like 
to attend, asking his escort for herself and her mother. 
She did not intimate that she would esteem the honor; 
she wrote as a friend who was still on terms of a sort 
with Lang. 

She had been refusing Lang’s invitations for a long 
time, in fact ever since his election to the mayoralty. 
She had not declined curtly. She exhibited no abso¬ 
lute dislike for him or his company. She had been 
even apologetic in her refusals to go anywhere with 
him. 

He had called on her as the weeks passed, but less 
often than had been his custom. He would not admit 
to himself that he loved her less. Occasionally he 
bluntly told her he loved her more. But for the most 
part they kept off the topic of love. Neither of them 
ever mentioned Skiddy Trask. 

Lang’s sense of pride was pricked deeply when her 
patient submissiveness informed him that he was en¬ 
dured rather than welcomed. But his resolve to win 
her—to tire out the folly which had turned her toward 
young Trask—made him persist. It was his nature to 
go grimly ahead toward any goal which he had set as 
a worth-while objective. 

When Reba was presented to Mrs. Trask, she 
greeted the hostess with warmth, the tactful fervor of 
which was refreshingly contrasted with the rather 
chary and circumspect compliments previously offered 
by the society inspectors who had come to peer and 
pry. The girl wife responded to Reba’s gracious 
manner. It was a rift in the cloud of smothering 
conventionality. 

Lang had been studying Anita as he and his com- 


AT HOME WITH THE TRASKS 


85 


panions made their slow advance in the line. He was 
remembering her protests against being kept in a 
corner, in the dark. Her beauty was now framed with 
jewels, her cheeks were flushed, her charm was su¬ 
premely glorious. But he perceived in her an inquie¬ 
tude akin to terror. She seemed to be awed as well as 
frightened. She had demanded all this, Lang knew. 
He understood how she had swayed the uxorious Trask 
to give what she desired. But she wore the air of a 
child who had demanded a genie’s wand as a plaything 
and was mortally in fear of what she had summoned 
up. She shared with Lang the smile she gave Reba, 
and his presence seemed to give her courage. He was 
closer to the Trask affairs than anybody else. 

Lang winced when old Trask gave him the prod with 
the thumb which so often pointed Double T’s coarse 
jocosity. “What are you waiting for, Lang? After 
my setting you an example, what are you waiting for, 
I ask? I reckoned on you being married by the time 
I got back from the South!” 

Reba hastily released the hostess’s hand and passed 
on. Lang, looking into Mrs. Trask’s eyes, wondered 
what her change of expression meant. He was accus¬ 
tomed to depend on the eyes for revelations of the 
truth, he told himself. But he was finding it hard 
work to believe he saw reproach, regret and protest 
dimming the luminous gaze lifted to his. 

“I hope to know you much better,” Reba had told 
the young wife. 

When Lang joined her, Reba repeated that wish to 
him. “She will find no real friends among such women 
as are flocking here tonight. Notice how they look 
at her! Hear them buzz behind their fans—the hor¬ 
nets! Won’t you help me to know her real well?” 

“How can I do that?” 


86 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“You’re her husband’s attorney—a friend of the 
family!” 

“And you would have me clear a path so you may 
serve as the nephew’s attorney, eh?” 

“Is your suspicion kind?” 

“Possibly not. But it’s correct. I don’t feel in¬ 
clined to help you, Reba. Do you mean to tell me 
you’re still clinging to a coward who has run away 
from you and from his duty to do as his uncle re¬ 
quests?” In accusing the innocent victim of a tyrant, 
Lang was seizing this opportunity to test Reba in her 
fealty to an apparent absconder. 

“I thought it was understood between us we’d let 
the topic sleep.” 

“You have stirred it up—it’s awake!” 

“I simply wish to be a friend to a girl who-” 

“I ask pardon—but you must remember I am a 
lawyer, and my mind instantly leaps to analyze the 
motives behind any wish.” 

“You’re too much of a lawyer—in everything,” she 
retorted. 

“Possibly! And as attorney for Trask, the elder, 
I’m going to oblige Trask, the younger, to obey his 
uncle’s commands—that is to say, make him obey as 
soon as we can catch him,” he hedged, to conceal what 
he knew. “I went to some pains to put the legal teeth 
into those commands.” 

“John, are you sure you haven’t gone out of your 
way to wreck another man’s life?” 

“I have only stayed in my path of duty, and have 
gone straight ahead for the good of all concerned. I’m 
sorry you have brought the matter up in this place, 
and at this time.” 

“Why, I merely-” But she checked her out¬ 

burst of protest and turned away from the cold eyes 




AT HOME WITH THE TRASKS 87 


challenging her motives in seeking friendship with the 
aunt of Skiddy Trask. 

The embarrassment was relieved by a social chat¬ 
terer. “Oh, Mr. Lang! You are so close to the 
family! But the rest of us are all at sea! Do tell me 
from what part of the South Mrs. Trask comes.” 

“I have not been informed, Mrs. Barron.” 

“Oh, you lawyers are so secretive!” 

“I assure you I am not secreting any information 
from you in this instance, my dear madam. I simply 
do not know!” 

The gossip-gleaner was not put off by his apparent 
sincerity; she gave him a simultaneous tap with her 
fan and a dig with her tongue. “But I just heard Mrs. 
Trask confide to somebody who was discussing you. 
She says you are her dearest friend, helper and con¬ 
fidant. But I suppose you lawyers must guard the 
sanctity of your confessional.” She went away. 

Lang from his height could look over the heads 
swaying between himself and his hostess. As if she 
were drawn by the potent influence of his stare, she 
turned and looked his way and smiled. But he felt a 
sense of irritation; this new gossip suggested that Mrs. 
Trask was indiscreet and might imperil his standing 
as her husband’s attorney. The old man’s tinder of 
jealousy was dangerously inflammable. Lang had 
adopted a manner of extreme reserve in the presence 
of Mrs. Trask, not out of any caddish doubt of her 
wifely integrity but because her apparent ingenuous¬ 
ness took embarrassing advantage of any slight show 
of camaraderie by him. 

“Your client is wonderfully pretty,” observed Reba 
drily. “Are you sure you did not dress for her sake 
on a certain occasion I have not forgotten?” 

“I did not know I was to see Mrs. Trask that eve- 


88 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


ning—I did not know then there was a Mrs. Trask. I 
have seen her only a few times. We seem to be bother¬ 
ing with a great deal of idle talk. I’ll take you and 
your mother in where the refreshments are.” 

In the crowded buffet there was the customary riot 
of chatter, above the clash and clatter of ware. But 
above all other sounds one woman’s strident tones 
carried. “She is deliciously Southern, that’s obvious 
enough! I really can’t make out whether she is over¬ 
shy or too shrewd to say a great deal about herself. 
Oh, I’m perfectly aware it isn’t nice to discuss the 
hostess—but she invites discussion—one simply can’t 
help talking about her. I just told her so! Even if 
she won’t talk about herself, I just said to her, she 
must expect everybody else in the city will talk about 
her! She really seemed glad to know it. So, with 
that warning to her, I’m excused. She’s so delight¬ 
fully pagan!” 

The voice ceased and then began again, evidently 
replying to a question. “What do I mean? Why, she’s 
a pagan, though she doesn’t seem to realize it. Ingenu¬ 
ously so, and in somebody else than in such a perfectly 
glorious creature her ways would be rude. However, 
we must forgive everything in a divinity. Am I not 
generous to one of my sex? But she refused to take 
the hand of Carlos Roccardi this evening—she looked 
at his twisted moustache and shivered—actually! 
Well, I don’t like his style much, myself, even though 
Carlos is far from being a devil. She turned away and 
wouldn’t look at him. I asked her about it, after 
Carlos had shrugged his shoulders and was gone. She 
said she always lets instinct rule her. Now isn’t that 
pagan?” 

Reba looked over her ice at Lang, and her gaze 
was so long and intent that he turned at last and faced 


AT HOME WITH THE TRASKS 89 


her. He was very solemn and seemed to be striving 
with uncomfortable thoughts. 

“What’s the matter?” he demanded, as if her stare 
had affected him like some sort of intrusion upon 
reflections he was hiding. 

“I was merely wondering! Wondering what yonder 
lady with the police-siren voice would have detected if 
she had intercepted the look the pagan gave you when 
you came to her this evening. If Mrs. Trask allows 
instinct to rule her dislikes, I suppose the same quality 
attaches to her likes.” 

“I don’t enjoy that sort of humor,” he said quite 
roughly. 

“Aren’t we good enough friends so you’ll allow me 
to joke with you?” 

“Trask’s wife has about the same interest in me as 
I have in Trask’s wife. And if you think it’s more than 
surface interest and if you can be complacent enough 
to joke me, you hurt my feelings. Don’t you know 
men any better than you seem to know ’em?” 

“You haven’t allowed me to know one man very 
well—that man being you!” 

“You’re too sure of me—that’s the trouble! You 
take me for granted. I haven’t raved and promised 
enough! There have been no tags hitched to me in 
the woman line. Confound it, Reba, I’m afraid women 
don’t really value a man unless he has been well adver¬ 
tised as a lover. Do you love Skiddy Trask, as you’d 
like to have me believe, for himself or for his repu¬ 
tation?” 

She stiffened. “It isn’t like you, John—that way of 
talking!” 

“There you go! You think you know me so well 
you have my ways and my manners all catalogued. 
I think the way to handle you, or any other woman, 


90 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


is to keep ’em guessing! What’ll you do, if I really 
make you jealous—or try to?” 

“There’s no telling what a woman will do, John,” 
she replied placidly. 

Again the high-pitched voice sounded over the rest 
of the sounds in the buffet. 

“I’m quite sure she has lived in the country dis¬ 
tricts in the South—not in any city. She knows too 
much about nature to be a city girl. She knows all 
about spiders!” 

There was a pause, indicating the interjection of 
another question. 

“Oh, I came early before the rush and I made it 
my way to talk with her. She tells me the lady 
spiders eat up the gentlemen spiders when they get 
in the way. And she said it as if she believes the plan 
to be a mighty good one. There’s a new-woman 
slogan for you! ‘Be a spider! Eat ’em up’.” 

General laughter drowned out the strident tones. 

“Do you care to stay longer, and dance?” Lang 
inquired. 

“No, I think I have seen enough.” 

He wanted to taunt her—to ask her whether 
Skiddy’s absence was keeping her from the dance. 
When he followed Reba in taking leave of the hostess, 
the girl-wife clung to his hand. “You give me courage 
—when I look at you,” she said in low tones. “It’s 
strange here! It’s so big in this world—I’m afraid.” 

“You have nothing to be afraid of—in your position, 
Mrs. Trask.” 

He relaxed his fingers, but she continued her 
clutch of his hand. Old Double T was no longer at 
her side—men had cajoled him into the smoking room. 

“Will you be my friend—always? Always willing 
to help me? You don’t understand how I feel—but 


AT HOME WITH THE TRASKS 


91 


I saw you first of all the great folks when I came out 
of the—when I came from the South.” 

“I will help you to the limit of my powers, if 
ever you should need help in my line. Remember! I 
am your husband’s friend.” 

In spite of the secret and rather cheap feeling that 
his masculine vanity had no reason to be flattered by 
her endeavor to enlist a helper, he put considerable 
cold significance into his reminder that he was Trask’s 
friend. 

“It’s a pledge!” Her eyes were now pleading with 
him. “And I know something else about you, Sir 
Mayor! My husband says John Lang never broke 
his pledged word.” 

It was fairly early when he left Reba and her 
mother at their door. He decided to go to the Talis¬ 
man Club and sit in his corner for a time. He re¬ 
entered the cab and was driven to the club. 


CHAPTER TEN 
A Specter From The North 


ANG found quite a convention of members 
in the Talisman Club’s lounge when he 
strolled in; most of them were in evening 
garb. Remarks, mingled with the greet¬ 
ings given him, left him to understand 
that these birds of a feather had merely skimmed 
through the Trask mansion in order to have a peek 
at the bride and a peck at the food and to satisfy 
curiosity. The remarks were not indiscreetly pointed; 
Lang’s position as attorney for the Trask interests was 
respected. But the human impulse to make gay com¬ 
ment on the extraordinary was not to be curbed among 
those who had so recently viewed the near-apotheosis 
of the girl-wife by the tyrant of the Double T. Lang 
endured tolerantly, though he did not smile. 

“And the advance notices inform us that your 
address to the Bar Association next week will cover 
‘The Ethics of Protection of Client by Counsel’,” 
drawled Larry Devon, the club satirist. “John, old 
Double T has a good case against you! Criminal 
neglect! Where was your protection?” 

Lang shook his head protestingly. 

“There may be a sensible way of getting old Serenus 
out of his scrape even yet!” Devon insisted. “Send 
for Skiddy, wherever he may be! Have him do the 
Lochinvar act with the bride. A little late for real 
romance. But it’s a worthy job—a job for a pro¬ 
fessional, and Skiddy has qualified!” 

Even venerable Judge Cleaves, of the Supreme 
92 











A SPECTER FROM THE NORTH 93 


Bench, was stirred to shoot an arrow of humor with 
the rest. 

“I really supposed Serenus, as master of the Double 
T drives, had learned about the dangers of January 
freshets and would build his dams more strongly in 
the winter of old .age. However,” admitted the judge, 
with an arch smile, “when pulchritude pleads its cause, 
common sense is often tongue-tied.” 

Larry Devon audaciously persisted in his own line 
of jest. “IPs too bad old Double T’s nephew hasn’t 
his regular feminist business better organized, with a 
competent staff. Then an assistant could attend to 
the second-rate eloping job which Skiddy is on now, 
and the chief could be free for this really important 
case. There’s no telling what a new wife may do to 
an old will!” 

Lang showed irritation. “Why do you infer that 
young Trask has eloped with anybody?” 

“Well, hasn’t he?” 

Lang did not reply. He and Serenus Trask, the 
elder, had been keeping off the topic of Trask’s shang¬ 
haied nephew. When old Double T had started to 
describe the details of the treatment accorded in the 
North to a persisting rebel, Lang had protested with 
profane violence. But Trask, in order to excuse his 
implacable mercilessness, did turn over to the attorney 
letters from the heiress of the Tulandic. The heiress 
frankly revealed that she was in a rebellious state of 
mind of her own and was not in a mood to wait much 
longer for the fulfilment of the promise to deliver to 
her one wooer, guaranteed, as per schedule, to become 
a husband able to give her social prestige. She had 
tried to be patient, she wrote, but between a dancing 
master and a modiste, both imported from the city, 
she was “completely tuckered out.” She demanded 


94 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


to know whether she had been wasting time and effort 
and her money. Trask, rabid because the business 
coalition might fail, was urging his attorney to go 
north and tackle the affair. Therefore, circumstances 
were not making Lang especially tolerant of club persi¬ 
flage. 

“What else besides girls does Skiddy have for a 
business?” quizzed Devon. “That’s my reason for 
mentioning a new elopement to you, John!” 

The men who surrounded Lang were entirely ab¬ 
sorbed in the mild baiting the lawyer was undergoing. 
Again Lang refrained from replying to Devon. But 
the jester was answered. A man shouted from the 
archway entrance of the lounge. The reply was in a 
falsetto which cracked and quavered with the emotion 
of one who was near the extremity of mental strain. 

“I’ll ’tend to questions about my business without 
any help from John Lang, the sneaking thief!” 

The new arrival at whom they gazed, when they 
whirled on their heels with a surge of excited interest, 
had mentioned “his business.” But there was not a 
man in the room who recognized Skiddy Trask, at first 
sight of him. 

In that interior of decorous elegance, contrasted 
with those men in evening clothes, the interloper pre¬ 
sented a strange figure of jarring incongruity. He was 
apparently a rough lumberjack, bearded and shaggy. 
From his worn moccasins to the frayed Scotch cap 
aslant on his head, he was unkempt, ragged and dirty. 
The fist he was shaking at Lang was roughened and 
grimed by work-a-day toil. When he drew his lips 
back from his yellow teeth, blood showed because the 
lips had been cracked by exposure to the cold of the 
North woods. 

“I have come, just as I am, to show you what you 


A SPECTER FROM THE NORTH 95 


have made of me, John Lang. How do you like your 
work? You told me to come when I had real business 
with you. I’m here, damn you!” 

Judge Cleaves walked out of the group of men, both 
hands aloft in protest at this profanation of the sedate 
Talisman Club. The judge had finally recognized the 
intruder, and was distinctly horrified by the aspect of 
Skiddy Trask, a member of the club. “Hush! Hush! ” 
pleaded the jurist. “Young Trask, remember where 
you are! And you’re insulting the honorable Mayor of 
our city.” 

But the vengeful intruder was not deterred by one 
who had formerly awed a nonentity in the club. Trask 
had come straight out of the winter woods; out of a 
hard school where blows and insults marked associa¬ 
tion with his fellows; a fugitive escaped from the 
Double T jailers! Berserker rage, torched by many 
an hour of flaming meditation, was in him. And mania 
gleamed in his eyes. He flung his arms about in men¬ 
acing gestures. “Get out of my way, you drooling old 
fool! I’ve got business with only one man here.” 

“Call the porters!” advised somebody. “He’s crazy 
and must be taken care of.” 

Trask drove his hand into the breast of his faded 
mackinaw jacket and pulled out a revolver. He began 
to rave, and threatened those who sought to lay re¬ 
straining hands on him. 

“Just a moment, gentlemen!” Lang pushed his way 
close to Trask and the calmness of his demeanor and 
the evenness of his voice helped to quiet matters. He 
stood in front of the young man, serenely contemptuous 
of the threat of the revolver; he turned his back on 
Trask and faced the club members. “I entreat the 
indulgence of the club, gentlemen. I may be partly 
responsible for this disturbance because Mr. Trask 


96 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


has come to me here on business. He and I will 
retire and attend to our affairs.” 

But Trask stepped back a few paces and raised his 
gun. “We’ll talk that business here—here and now! 
You told me to come to you. Didn’t you promise to 
listen?” 

“I said I would listen when you had anything of 
importance to say to me.” 

“I belong to this club—my dues are paid—and I’m 
going to give these members a chance to decide whether 
what I’ve got to say is important or not. I’ll shoot the 
man who tries to stop me. But you’d better listen, 
all of you! And after I’m done, go ahead and expel 
me.” 

He shook his weapon at the attorney. “You don’t 
dare to keep your promise, and listen to me, John 
Lang! That’s what the matter is with you!” 

“I dare to listen!” The lawyer straightened; he 
surveyed his fellow members. “Gentlemen, it may 
save the situation from becoming worse if we allow 
Mr. Trask to say what he has to say to me, accord¬ 
ing to his own choice in the matter. He is much 
overwrought, it seems, and is armed.” 

The men nodded their agreement. Their curiosity, 
it was plain, was stronger than their desire to preserve 
club decorum. 

“I am keeping my promise to you, Mr. Trask,” 
suggested the lawyer quietly. “Go ahead.” 

Trask did not remove his cap. He brandished his 
weapon while he talked. “I stood outside my uncle’s 
house tonight in these rags—it was open to everybody 
—and I didn’t dare go in—and that’s what you have 
done to me. You gave him law to make a slave of 
me, and you bragged to me about your putting teeth 
into that law? Wasn’t that your brag?” 


A SPECTER FROM THE NORTH 97 


“Yes!” admitted Lang, without emotion of any sort. 

“He has made a will—and it leaves me one dollar 
—and you drew that will for him. Didn’t you?” 

“I did.” 

“My uncle made me what I am—he wouldn’t let 
me be anything else than a loafer. You know he 
wouldn’t!” 

“I know it.” 

“Yes, you knew it—and you helped him make that 
will. And look at me! I stand here a pauper! and I 
had my one chance to be made decent, and you 
wouldn’t help me to that chance. Would you help me? 
No! You stood up and told me I could not have that 
chance. Didn’t you tell me?” 

“Yes!” 

In the breathless silence men murmured—a note of 
wonder in their tones. What was this which John 
Lang was admitting in the way of the ruination of a 
man? 

“And even now you won’t give me that chance, will 
you? You won’t ask my uncle to see the right way, 
and you won’t do the one thing which will give me 
back my happiness and start me on the way to make 
a man of myself—you won’t do it, will you? I can see 
by your damned hard face that you won’t do it!” He 
snarled the taunt. 

“Trask, I have explained the whole thing calmly to 
you in the past—and you can’t expect this play-acting 
trick to make a fool of me after my best judgment has 
influenced me to make up my mind for good and all.” 

“Play-acting!” shrieked the other. “You call this 
play-acting, after I have been wallowing through hell? 
My God, Lang, haven’t you eyes to see when a man is 
so earnest that it’s life or death for him?” 

“I’ll talk with you when you are calmer, Trask.” 


98 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“And talk the same as you have in the past, eh?” 

“Undoubtedly! The conditions have not changed. 
They seem to be much worse,” stated Lang, looking 
the ragged man up and down. “I shall not allow 
hysteria to turn me from what I consider is right.” 

Trask slowly lowered the gun and aimed it at the 
lawyer. The men in the room gasped protest. The 
threatened target did not move. 

“Oh, I’m not going to kill you, John Lang! I’ve 
had too long a time to think things over to let you 
off as easy as that. But right in line with the aim of 
this gun I’m going to shoot something into you with 
my tongue. Let the word go out of this club—and it 
will—that you have made me what I am, and wouldn’t 
give me my chance. You’ve got a conscience, even if 
you haven’t any mercy. And that conscience is going 
to take you by the neck and put you on to your knees 
—on to your knees, Lang, just as I have been on my 
knees to you. Stay alive! I’m not sure about there 
being a hell hereafter. But I know there’s one on this 
earth—I’ve been through it. Stay alive!” 

He started toward the archway of the vestibule. He 
waved the revolver over his head. 

“Stay alive!” he repeated over and over, in a sort 
of frenzy. 

He halted and whirled suddenly, to the dismay of 
the distressed clubmen who were hoping that the 
dreadful scene was ended. He returned a few steps 
toward Lang who stood calmly in his tracks. “I didn’t 
intend to drag a woman’s name into this,” squealed 
the intruder in hysterical falsetto. 

There was only one woman who belonged in the 
affair, so Lang’s first flash of frenzied thought told 
him! He broke out of the stolid composure which he 
had imposed upon himself. He started toward young 


A SPECTER FROM THE NORTH 99 


Trask, snapping fierce oaths as the preface for his 
command to be silent. But Skiddy’s piercing tones 
carried above Lang’s voice. 

“That gets you, hey? And it ain’t any damned 
wonder it does! I’m out of the North country! I got 
facts up there while I was getting hell! Listen, every¬ 
body here!” 

He darted away from Lang’s clutches at him; he 
ran around the room, dodging behind divans and chairs 
while he delivered himself. 

“You went up into the woods a-hunting! Yes, you 
were hunting all right! You helped the gang plaster 

her on to my uncle! The damnation-!” He 

screamed the vile name. 

Lang ceased his pursuit of young Trask. He was 
wondering, himself, what Skiddy had dug up in the 
North country in the way of information about Serenus 
Trask’s wife. Feeling his absolute innocence in that 
affair he resumed his calm manner, allowing the club 
members to think what they chose to infer from his 
sudden outburst. The accuser ran and stood in the 
archway. 

“She’s your pet and your tool, that’s what she is! 
You helped her get her claws into my uncle. What 
did you do with Mack Templeton? Did she kill him 
or did you hire it done? I guess I’ll go and ask her. 
You won’t tell—but maybe she’s fool enough to do 
it! Yes, if I jump her with the name of Mack Tem¬ 
pleton!” 

He paused in the archway and faced toward the 
man whom he had accused, reckless in his virulence. 
“You have left me nothing to live for, Lang! But 
—stay alive! And see what it gets you!” 

He jammed the revolver into a pocket and hurried 
out of the club house. 



100 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“In the case of anybody but Skiddy Trask I should 
say some of his friends ought to follow him and stop 
him from committing suicide,” averred Devon, the first 
to get his voice after Trask’s dramatic departure. 
“But, somehow, you don’t give Skiddy credit for having 
the courage.” 

“I don’t think the word courage is at all felicitous 
when used in connection with suicide,” protested Judge 
Cleaves. 

He was surveying Lang with interest. The law¬ 
yer was showing less composure than he had dis¬ 
played when he had been menaced by the gun. “If 
you are convinced that our friend, young Trask, is an 
utter coward, Devon, you ought to follow him and 
save him. Cowards kill themselves!” 

But Devon lighted a cigarette and sat down. 

“It’s the brave man who plays out his hand, no 
matter what cards Fate has dealt,” pursued the judge. 
“That’s trite, but I feel like emphasizing it at this 
moment. We know how shocking it would be for a 
petulant player to throw his whist hand on the floor 
in the card-room, yonder. When a man blows out 
his own brains, he makes a great deal of trouble for 
other folks and dodges his own misfortunes. 

“Brother Lang,” he continued, with the formal 
speech characteristic of his manner on the bench, “I 
noticed that your legal training held you to answers of 
yes and no when you were on the stand, so to speak, 
a few moments ago. It was wise, perhaps. How¬ 
ever, considering in what an unfavorable light you have 
been put by your plain disinclination to provoke an 
insane man to bring scandal upon the club, I’m sure 
your friends will be glad to listen to any explanation 
you have to offer.” 

“I thank you, Judge Cleaves, but I do not feel as 


A SPECTER FROM THE NORTH 101 


if this were a case which should go to trial at this 
time—at any rate, not in the Talisman Club.” 

In spite of the calm tone in which Lang spoke, the 
judge reddened perceptibly and the listeners felt the 
lawyer’s retort to be unjustifiably discourteous, con¬ 
sidering the jurist’s manifest spirit of friendly helpful¬ 
ness. Lang immediately walked out of the lounge, 
secured his hat and coat and left the building. 

“There may be nothing in Skiddy’s threats or 
laments,” admitted Devon. “Most likely not, because 
his wits seem to be off the hooks entirely. But if there 
is, John Lang ought to be currying popular favor 
instead of turning the cold shoulder to it. The whole 
blamed world is sour in these times when folks seem 
to be out hunting for a good excuse to kick a fellow— 
and the bigger the fellow, the more surface he spreads 
for kicking purposes. Damn it, Lang is our mayor! 
He can’t afford to let a smirch stick to him.” 

Justice Cleaves had not regained his good nature. 
He selected a cigar from his case, gnawed off the end 
and expelled the bit of tobacco with vigor. “If what 
Lang admitted to young Trask is any indication of the 
facts in the case, we ought to find Brother Lang’s 
address to the Bar Association particularly interest¬ 
ing, providing I recollect the nature of the subject. 

Is it not-” he hesitated, looking from face to face 

of the attorneys who were in the group. 

“ ‘The Ethics of Protection of Client by Counsel,’ ” 
stated Larry Devon ironically. 



CHAPTER ELEVEN 

Why The Music Stopped 

HILE his club friends were mildly dis¬ 
paraging Lang’s suitableness for the 
theme assigned to him, the lawyer was 
putting those ethics of protection to a 
practical test. He was hastening in a cab 
to the mansion of the elder Trask, late as the hour 
was. 

Lang had devised a twist bit, following the client’s 
orders, and the bit was not operating according to 
expectations. It was a new Skiddy Trask who had 
come from somewhere out of the night. It was a 
wild colt—the intruder who had reared and kicked 
recklessly in the Talisman Club. Lang was still dis¬ 
counting the ability of the nephew to make serious 
trouble for his betters, but was admitting the possi¬ 
bilities of damage by a runaway fool. 

Activities at the mansion were still in progress. 
There was music, and the young folks were dancing. 
Departing elder guests were filtering out from the 
front entrance; at the rear doors the caterers were 
removing the debris of the feast. 

Lang noted how much of open opportunity there was 
if a desperate man wanted to invade the place. But 
his practical mind would not admit that young Trask 
was lunatic enough to attempt any actual sortie of 
violence on his uncle. 

Lang reassured Serenus, the elder, on that point 
when they were closeted in Trask’s den on the upper 
102 










WHY THE MUSIC STOPPED 103 

floor. The lawyer did not mention Skiddy’s ravings 
about the uncle’s wife. 

“So that’s what he said, and that’s how he looked, 
eh?” commented old Double T after Lang had suc¬ 
cinctly reported on the affair at the club. “I heard he 
had got away from the keepers—damn the lunkheads! 
Did he say where he has been lately?” 

“In hell.” 

“Meaning, perhaps, he was over on the Tulandic 
and got a look at Maravista Blake when she didn’t 
know it! Considering what he has been able to pick 
in the past in the line of girls, the sight of her as his 
sentence for life may have had the effect on him it 
seems to have had. But the thing is going through 
as I have planned it, Lang. He’s back here where he 
can be handled. Use the twist bit.” 

Skiddy Trask had raved about a conscience—had 
conjured it up, as he would summon a demon. Lang 
threw a sop to that conscience. “You are absolutely 
set upon the Blake marriage, are you, sir?” 

“Absolutely!” Trask brought down both palms 
on the arms of his chair. He twisted his neck till he 
was able to train his wall-eye on the lawyer. “And I 
am just as absolutely set against his making a fool of 
you, of himself and of that girl he has been trying to 
tole away from you. What’s the matter with you, 
Lang?” 

“We won’t drag in that side of the thing, if you 
please! ” 

“It’s already dragged in. I’ve attended to that. I’ve 
made it my business to ask a lot of questions about 
this girl affair of my nephew’s. He always has some¬ 
thing of the kind on—and it was only a case of my 
finding out what the latest one was. Lang, what do 
you suppose I’d do to a man who tried to cut in on 


104 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the girl I had picked out? Gad, if you’re getting 
weak enough to lie down in a case of love, next thing 
you’ll be lying down in a case of law! Wake up!” 

Neither of the men had heard the sound of the door 
when it was opened. The voice of Mrs. Trask startled 
them. “Was I wanted here?” 

“No!” snapped old Double T before he had re¬ 
covered his poise. Then his eyes moistened as he 
gazed on the charming picture framed in the doorway. 
“Yes, you are! You’re always wanted by me, honey! 
Come here!” She went to his side and he put his 
arm about her, pulled her close to him and kissed 
her. Her side glance was with Lang while the old 
man pressed his lips to hers. 

“And now trot along,” commanded the husband, 
looking around at Lang and flaunting the triumph of 
one who was able to control and command this glorious 
creature. “But what made you think I wanted you?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Well, I do.” He squinted at her. 

Lang was astonished when her forced smile was 
succeeded by an expression of terror. 

“Well, for the love o’—what—what are you scared 
about?” demanded Trask. 

“I’m not frightened.” 

“I should hope not, when I’m only going to explain 
about its being the little bird of love that’s always tell¬ 
ing you I want you. I’m afraid this evening is rather 
too much strain for you, Anita. I’ll send away those 
devilish fiddlers. They’re getting on my nerves, 
too.” 

“No, no!” she pleaded. “Let them play for a while. 
It’s fun. And you will stay here in this room for a 
time, dear old husband?” 

“Yes! I have business. Run along for now.” 


WHY THE MUSIC STOPPED 


105 


She hurried out and shut the door. Down the cor¬ 
ridor was her maid. Anita beckoned to her. 

“And you’re sure—sure this queer man wants to 
see me—doesn’t he want my husband?” 

“He’s rough, like so many men who come to see 
the master. But he says he has a message from the 
North woods for you—you alone, madam. So, I told 
him to wait in your little sitting room.” She indicated 
the door of the room, farther along the corridor. 

Anita went slowly toward the door. When she 
reached it she held her hand on the knob for some 
moments. She turned and saw the maid still observ¬ 
ing her. She impatiently waved dismissal and the 
maid went on her way. While the servant was hurry¬ 
ing down a rear stairway, she heard the door close 
behind her mistress. On the lower floor the maid 
nudged the butler who was bossing the caterers pack¬ 
ing up in the serving room. 

“That man who came in by the back door!” she 
whispered. 

“I didn’t pay any special attention. Who is he?” 

“The mistress seemed frightened when she went to 
him. We’d better go and stand outside her door.” 
There was a hint in her tone and manner. The two 
servants appeared to be very good friends. 

“She seemed frightened, eh?” The butler narrowed 
his eyes. “Then you’re right! We have had jobs in 
other places where we have cashed in on what we 
heard. Ye-ah! We’d better go and stand outside 
her door.” He winked at the maid when he echoed 
her suggestion. 

In the den, the lawyer and his client proceeded to 
consider the case of the intractable nephew. Below- 
stairs, the music sounded, and there was the rippling 
laughter of dancing girls. 


106 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Trask’s mood, in spite of what he had said about 
fiddlers, apparently was mellowed by the music, or 
softened by his recent scene with his girl-wife. “Of 
course, Lang,” he proceeded, after a period devoted 
to musing, “we’ve got to consider all sides of the thing. 
Love is a touchy mess to handle. I’ve found that 
much out late in my life, and the swagger girl you 
were beauing around tonight has probably made you 
feel the same way. I’m not changing my mind about 
my nephew marrying the Blake girl. That’s business! 
The Double T and the Tulandic, hitched together, 
make a property worth four times what it’s worth 
divided. And he’s carrying my name! The only 
Trask left! We’ve got to nurse this thing more or 
less. If I didn’t know more about love than I used 
to know, I’d have had him standing with the Blake 
girl before a parson weeks ago. I’d have held him 
by the scruff of the neck and choked him until he said 
yes and kissed the bride. But I’m a little lenient 
these days. He must come to the net, though! After 
the hook has been set, you’ve got to let your fish do 
about so much scooting and threshing. We’ll go 
ahead now and reel him in, Lang—reel him-” 

Then the old man leaped out of his chair. “Name o’ 
hell, Lang, what’s that?” 

A firearm had cracked—somewhere in the house. 
A moment later a woman screamed in the corridor. 

Trask flung open the door of the den. His wife’s 
maid was scampering toward him. Down the cor¬ 
ridor the butler stood near a door at which he pointed 
his finger significantly when the master appeared. 

Lang ran along with Trask to the door, but allowed 
the latter to open it. He went in after Trask. “Keep 
everybody away from here,” the lawyer commanded 
the servant, and shut the door. 



WHY THE MUSIC STOPPED 


107 


“Who is that—who’s that man?” quavered Trask. 

The man lay on the floor, face up. 

“It’s your nephew,” stated the lawyer, remembering 
his own hesitant recognition of young Trask in the 
Talisman Club. 

Lang stepped forward to make an examination, 
showing no tremors. He exchanged looks with Mrs. 
Trask. She was huddled on a divan, peering at the 
lawyer from over her forearm which she held before 
her face. From the fingers of her uplifted hand 
dangled a revolver. 

Lang turned his back on her when he rose from his 
knees. He faced Trask. “I’m sorry—he’s dead, sir!” 

The girl on the divan had been making unintelli¬ 
gible sounds. They were exhalations of breath, hoarse, 
rattling gaspings. 

The form of the old man seemed to slump in his 
evening clothes; the garments hung on him in folds. 
He doubled forward and staggered to and fro. Then, 
with his feet pounding heavily on the carpet, he 
lurched along to the divan and snatched the revolver 
from his wife’s limp fingers. “What are you doing 
with that thing? What has happened here?” 

She fell face downward and pulled a cushion over 
her head. “He’ll kill me! He’ll do what he threatened 
to do! He’ll get up and kill me!” 

The husband pulled off the pillow which was muf¬ 
fling her voice. “That poor boy is dead. He can’t 
hurt you. Speak up! What has happened here?” 

Lang touched Trask’s arm. “I advise you to wait 
till she’s calmer before you ask questions.” 

But the wife straightened up on the divan and 
clutched the men, both of them, with hands that 
shook as if with ague. She held the two close to 
her, sliding her hands into their grasp, welding her 


108 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


clasp with theirs. Plainly, she was fighting off 
hysteria. “I want to tell you now—now—now! I 
want you both to understand. He came and wanted 
to see me. I don’t know him. Who is he?” 

“He is your husband’s nephew.” 

Her eyes filmed for an instant. “He said so. I 
didn’t believe him. He threatened me. He pulled 
out a pistol. He said I must do as he told me to do. 
He said he would kill himself unless I promised. He 
held the pistol to his head. I don’t know how—how 
—but perhaps he didn’t mean to do it. But his hand 
was shaking—like mine are shaking now. And the 
pistol went off. He fell down!” Then she allowed 
her feelings to conquer her. She screamed. 

“You’d better wait,” Lang advised when the hus¬ 
band started to speak. 

“I’ve got to know it all now, before I go crazy,” the 
old man insisted. “You had the pistol in your hand, 
Anita. I took it away from you. How did it happen 
—that you had the pistol?” 

“He fell. I was afraid he would get up and hurt 
me. He had threatened. I wanted to live. He 
moved and I was afraid he would get up, I tell you! 
I picked the revolver from the floor. Yes, that’s how 
it happened.” 

“Where was it lying?” asked Trask. 

“Right beside his hand—there on the floor.” She 
released Trask’s hand and pointed. “I was afraid 
he would take it and shoot me.” 

The husband gave Lang a sidelong look. “I’ll put 
it back, where she got it from. As I understand it, 
the law doesn’t want any evidence disturbed.” He 
laid the revolver carefully on the floor near the dead 
hand. 

The wife had imprisoned Lang’s hand in the frantic 


WHY THE MUSIC STOPPED 


109 


clutch of both of her own. He was obliged to unclasp 
her fingers one by one in order to free himself. He 
turned to watch Trask’s disposition of the weapon, but 
he made no comment. 

“It’s all right to do it, eh?” demanded the old man. 
“It’s the law, isn’t it?” 

“Conditions must be left as they are until a medical 
examiner arrives, Mr. Trask.” 

“Then you and I must not say a word about my 
wife picking up the gun. It’s terrible—terrible, Lang! 
But the poor girl had a right to protect herself.” 

“I thought he was getting up again,” wailed Anita. 

“Yes, the poor girl had the right to protect herself.” 
Trask went over to the divan and sat down and took 
his wife in his arms. She hid her face against his 
breast. Trask looked over her head and caught Lang’s 
eyes. “He made threats in the club about killing 
himself, didn’t he? You told me so!” 

The lawyer hesitated. 

“Speak up! Didn’t he say before witnesses that 
he was going to commit suicide?” 

“He said I had left him nothing to live for, Mr. 
Trask.” 

“Well, the others heard him, didn’t they?” 

“He shouted it.” The attorney seemed to be weigh¬ 
ing matters in his thoughts. 

“You said you would help me always—in every¬ 
thing. You said it to me tonight,” Anita whispered. 
“You are my true, dearest friend, John Lang. When 
you tell them what he said to you they’ll believe you.” 

Once more, under Trask’s basilisk, demanding stare, 
Lang felt a sense of helpless rage at this woman’s pro¬ 
voking assertions as to intimacy. 

“It looks to me as if there are some matters in my 
family I haven’t been let in on,” remarked Trask 


110 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


with considerable insolence. The tragedy had un¬ 
nerved him, and he was beginning to let himself go, 
after his first show of fortitude. 

“Your wife is not herself, just now, as I have 
warned you, sir. You must take her to her room— 
away from this. And when she is calm she can 
explain, no doubt, that she and I exchanged a few 
jests this evening, at the reception, about my position 
as counsel and adviser to the Trasks. And I trust 
you’ll both take my advice now. Help her to her 
room and stay with her, Mr. Trask. I’ll handle mat¬ 
ters, as your attorney.” 

He ushered them out. 

Lang set the butler on guard at the door of the 
room of tragedy. 

He went to the group of lingering guests who had 
crowded on the main stairway, venturing as near the 
scene as they dared. 

“I’m obliged to give you some very painful news. 
Mr. Trask’s nephew arrived in the city tonight, show¬ 
ing by his dress and his actions and words that he 
was suffering from serious mental disturbance. He 
forced himself into the presence of Mrs. Trask and, 
though she is not sure he really intended to use his 
weapon on himself, it was discharged, and he is dead.” 

“Then it’s a case of suicide?” inquired one of the 
group. 

“Undoubtedly.” 

The guests conversed in low tones among them¬ 
selves. A spokesman then did service for them. 
“Please tell Mr. and Mrs. Trask for us that we are 
immeasurably shocked and extend our condolence, one 
and all.” 

“I will tell them and I thank you in their behalf.” 

He stood there at the top of the stairs until all 


WHY THE MUSIC STOPPED 


111 


had departed, hushing their voices and tiptoeing out 
of the mansion where the silence of death had replaced 
music and laughter. 

By telephone he notified the medical examiner, the 
police and the newspapers. Lang received the reporters 
in the drawing room, gave them a statement covering 
the affair and said that Mr. and Mrs. Trask were 
too unstrung by the tragic happening to be interviewed. 
The reporters were plainly not satisfied when Lang 
courteously informed them that he was not able to 
add anything further to what he had said. One of 
them talked for the others—and was bold. 

“The newspapers have had a tip—and that was 
before this suicide story broke for us! It’s said you 
and young Trask had a run-in at the Talisman Club 
after he struck town. We have been trying to locate 
you or him.” 

“My suggestion to you is that a conversation between 
two men at a club, no matter what the topic might 
have been, may prove to be delicate material to be 
handled by newspapers,” advised the lawyer coldly. 

“That’s right, sir, without something else for a hook 
to hang it on. This case here at the house seems to 
furnish the hook and we’d like a statement from you.” 

Lang knew well enough what the reporter was hint¬ 
ing at, but he hedged, asking the speaker to be more 
explicit. 

“As we get the story, he said he was desperate 
enough to kill himself, and accused you of being re¬ 
sponsible for the fix he was in.” 

“Yes?” suggested Lang with rising inflection. 

“You must have known him especially well, seeing 
how you handled all affairs of his, as attorney. Would 
you give it as your judgment that he was insane, and 
not responsible for what he said?” 


112 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“I am not an alienist.” 

“But you stand so high, Mr. Mayor, that any man 
who said what he said about you must have been 
crazy.” 

“You must supply your own inferences. I have no 
statement to make.” 

“These nuts who get touched up with this persecu- 
tional mania can bring a lot of trouble on to innocent 
parties,” suggested the reporter. “We’d like to say 
for you, on your statement, that you have not given 
the victim any cause for this wild talk.” 

Lang shook his head with decision. 

“Now he has killed himself and we’ve got to print 
the whole story, club feature and all,” persisted the 
newspaper man, “it leaves you open to cheap talk 
behind your back. You may as well protect your¬ 
self, Mr. Mayor.” 

Lang showed temper. “I have never hidden behind 
living men—I’ll not try to hide now behind a dead 
man. That’s all I have to say about the case. Good 
night, gentlemen!” 

He left them and went to the chamber to which 
young Trask’s body had been removed by orders of 
the medical examiner. Doctor Jephson was there. 

“I’m reporting it as suicide, John! Of course, there’s 
no doubt about it. The gun was held so close that the 
ear is peppered with powder marks. And his des¬ 
perate talk to you at the club has been pretty well 
circulated! Too bad! But we doctors and lawyers 
do get it handed to us — and only for doing our 
duty!” 

Just then, groping in the maze of his doubts, John 
Lang would have welcomed such a definition of duty 
as would furnish him with a practical basis for action. 
The fact that Anita Trask held the lethal weapon 


WHY THE MUSIC STOPPED 


113 


when he entered the room, was only trivial circum¬ 
stantial evidence, as Lang looked at it. 

Skiddy Trask had displayed the demeanor of a man 
who contemplated suicide. He had motives for sui¬ 
cide—and Lang, in his cases, always employed the 
battering-ram of motive to break down the circum¬ 
stantial evidence which the hireling sleuths built up 
against the accused whom Lang had defended. The 
girl had no motive to prompt her to kill the nephew, 
the lawyer assured himself. The doting husband, 
Lang knew, had told her about the new will which 
secured her interests. 

Could a weak, frightened girl wrest a weapon from a 
desperate man? It was suicide! Lang knew all the 
reasons young Trask had for utter despair. 

But even while the lawyer urged to himself that it 
must have been suicide, the consciousness rankled in 
him that the newspaper man was right about the wag¬ 
ging tongues. And some tongues would even stab— 
accusing him of methods which had done a despairing 
man to death! 

The last words Lang had heard Skiddy utter this 
side of the grave were, “Stay alive! And see what it 
gets you!” 


CHAPTER TWELVE 
A Woman's Whim 



HE beast of scandal roared on the day fol¬ 
lowing the tragedy. But after a few days 
the volume of the raucous voice ebbed. 
Lang had set his jaws, purposing to meet 
the situation face to face, firm in his 
tracks, as he would have waited the onrush of a 
charging moose in the forest. 

He discovered, however, in course of time, that he 
was called on to battle futilely with wasps. The 
rumors buzzed. He heard the sound of them. Every 
now and then one of the swarm ventured boldly to 
approach and sting. 

For the first time in his life he found his choice of 
movements urging him to stick closely to his duties, 
making himself as private as he could; he was telling 
himself he could not spare the time to go about town 
—and he knew he was lying to his soul. He had 
never followed such tactics with his conscientious¬ 
ness before. It was the first indication that the foun¬ 
dation stone of his self-respect was undermined. 

Mayor of the city! But he was more at ease when 
he walked along the side streets instead of on the 
main thoroughfares. He urged in his reflections that 
he did not care a continental how folks looked at him 
or what they said behind his back. But his man’s 
pride answered him, whimpering under the lash, and 
almost confessed that it was vanity disguised, and was 
not able to endure wounds. He shortened his daily 
114 








A WOMAN’S WHIM 


115 


stay at City Hall and he appeared at public functions 
only when the need was imperative. 

After a time he kept away from the Talisman Club. 
Men were demurely polite to his face, but there was 
no more of the copious outpouring of warm, personal 
regard. There was a queer look in men’s eyes. 

Lang knew well what was captaining the wasps of 
rumor, and was marshalling disparagement, suspicion, 
rebuke and actual aspersion of motives. It was the 
ghost of young Trask! Not in the sense of an actual 
visitation. Lang was too much of a cynic in matters 
psychic to look on the situation in that light. 

But around the personality of the victim had been 
flung the mystic garment of the awe of death—the 
white samite which human charity drapes over the 
imperfections of the flesh. Skiddy Trask, when he 
was breathing, eating and loving, had been a weak 
ne’er-do-well whom any real man could scorn as an 
antagonist. But Skiddy Trask, after his sacrifice to 
despair, had become a potent force, though invisible. 
He was dealing sure and effective blows at pride, 
reputation, professional standing and peace of mind— 
and Lang could not strike back. It was as if Skiddy 
Trask were standing in the shadows, forging weapons 
and whetting knives, giving them into the grasp of 
human beings who could wield them. 

Lang even avoided Reba Donworth in spite of his 
despondent longing to be with her. He felt he could 
confess to her, at any rate, his realization that he had 
dealt too harshly with a weak man. She understood 
the matter better than any one else. He was helplessly 
confessing to himself that he had been wrong—but 
only in limited measure. 

She wrote to him a few days after the tragedy. He 
had hoped she would extend some sort of woman’s 


116 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


sympathy. He had believed that a person of her 
nature would be able to rise above the prejudices of 
the others, in spite of the wound he had dealt her. 
He had faith in woman’s expansive forgiveness. 

If her letter to him had been filled with bitter 
reproach, he would have had an excuse to seek her 
for an explanation and to strive for a better under¬ 
standing between them. But she had been calmly 
cold and judicial in her mention of his part in the 
affair of Skiddy Trask. She offered her pity to Lang, 
leaving it to his conscience to do the direct accusing. 

And conscience did accuse! Her letter was the 
prompting force. He wanted to tear the letter up. 
On the contrary, he saved it and read it several times. 

Anger alternated with his grief. He had fought for 
his own, even if pride had been the mainspring of his 
efforts! When, in his shifting moods, he was sorry, 
he did not feel like trying to set matters right with 
himself and the world; when he was angry, he had 
sense enough to keep from making a bad matter worse, 
and held his peace. 

He was fighting against a dead man and the world’s 
derogatory opinion, and against his own conscience. 
“Stay alive! And see what it gets you!” 

When Lang looked at his desk motto, “Be Right 
and Go Straight to the Job,” the letters seemed to fade 
into misty blankness and then to wriggle again into 
view, phrasing young Trask’s taunt. 

One day Serenus Trask called Lang on the tele¬ 
phone. He curtly commanded the lawyer to come out 
to his mansion. 

Just as curtly Lang answered, “You must come to 
my office, sir. City affairs keep me here!” 

The attorney, at this time, was avoiding Anita Trask 
as much as possible. He dreaded the interviews at the 


A WOMAN’S WHIM 


117 


mansion. She intruded upon them nonchalantly. Her 
manner and her injudicious tongue seemed to rouse 
unjust jealousy in her husband. 

When Trask arrived, hurrying in his car, he flung 
his fur coat across one chair and sat in another. His 
expression changed from sour resentment to anxiety 
etched deeply into his wrinkles. “Lang, I’ll double 
your retainer if you’ll resign your cursed political job 
and give me your attention as you used to do. I need 
you—must have you! Lang, there’s hell to pay in 
my house!” 

The attorney smiled ruefully, and replied with acrid 
bitterness, “There’s some personal satisfaction in hear¬ 
ing there’s a worse place than a mayor’s office.” 

“This last is worse—even worse than losing my 
namesake, the only one to carry down the Trask 
family. I have lost him, but now I’m in danger of 
losing my mind, if things can’t be straightened out in 
my house.” 

“I’m listening!” suggested Lang, after he had waited 
for some moments for Trask to get himself in hand. 

“I’m harboring thieves in my house, Lang. My wife 
has lost jewels—thousands of dollars’ worth. My 
private safe has been robbed, not only once but 
several times. And I have the thieves dead to rights! 
I have done a little robbing on my own hook. I 
have broken open trunks and ripped mattresses. I 
have got back a lot of the loot, and I know just 
where I found it. It was in the rooms of Dudley, the 
butler, and my wife’s maid, Rena.” 

“You surely don’t need legal advice from me on a 
matter of that sort, Mr. Trask. It’s a case for the 
police and the district attorney.” 

“It is, is it? By gad, it isn’t, the way the thing 
stands,” retorted Double T with violence. “My wife 


118 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


won’t let me have those crooks arrested. She fairly 
wound herself around me, as tight as the warp on a 
snubbing post, and made me promise her I wouldn’t 
put ’em in the jug.” 

The lawyer pondered. “Mrs. Trask’s way may be 
the better one, sir. You’ll be avoiding more of this 
damnable newspaper notoriety.” His tone was resent¬ 
ful. “If you have recovered the stolen stuff, you can 
discharge the pair and-” 

“My wife won’t stand for it to have ’em discharged 
—she has made me promise her I won’t discharge 
’em.” 

“What reason does she give for that attitude?” Lang 
demanded, his interest stirred. 

“About a thousand reasons!” raged the old man. 
“I can’t remember ’em all! She hung on to my neck 
and kissed me till I couldn’t breathe and she begged for 
’em. Said she would reform ’em. Said a lot of things. 
I’m just about crazy. I know board measure, and I 
can estimate stumpage, but I’ll be cussed if I know 
anything about a woman. Dod whang it, Lang, do 
you think I can sit in my dining room and eat a meal 
of victuals with relish, having that damnation thief in 
front of my eyes or behind my back? I’d rather be 
in hell with the covers on! What shall I do?” 

“Be master in your own house, Mr. Trask.” 

“I can’t go against Anita when she is as much 
worked up as she is now. She was in hysterics till 
she had swung me round.” There was pitiful per¬ 
turbation on Trask’s countenance. 

“Your wife is a rather high-strung person, isn’t 
she?” 

“Listen, Lang!” The old man leaned forward and 
spoke in a cautious undertone. “She isn’t like com¬ 
mon folks. No girl could have caught me, if she was 



A WOMAN’S WHIM 


119 


just a girl, and nothing else. There’s something about 
her that isn’t wholly human. I’m only an old woods¬ 
man, and I don’t know how to put it in language— 
the thoughts I have about her. But aren’t there women 
born—they aren’t witches—that’s a poor word—or— 
or well, I give it up! But they’re born with a power, 
aren’t they—some women—to make fools of the best 
of men?” 

“I believe the poets do say so.” 

“I’m no damnation poet!” blurted Trask. “But I 
love that girl. I love her even when she doesn’t 
notice me, but sits in a trance and looks up toward 
the sky and says she sees her lady mother, of high 
degree. It would sound crazy in somebody else. But 
she’s so handsome it seems natural for her to say it. 
If she told me a fairy was her mother I guess I’d 
believe it. You have never noticed in her anything 
to hint as how her mind isn’t right, have you, Lang?” 
he pleaded earnestly. 

“I must remind you that my acquaintance with 
Mrs. Trask is very limited.” 

“I love her,” fatuously insisted the old husband. “I 
suppose it’s love. It must be. But when she begged 
those renegades off she twisted herself around me. 
It wasn’t like a man’s wife asking something sensible 
—and being sensible whilst she asked it. I couldn’t 
tell her no. I couldn’t help myself. But I had an 
awful feeling as if I’d like to pry her away from me, 
same as I’d push off a snake. My God, Lang, I was 
—I—I was afraid!” 

Trask “suffled” his breath with his blue lips. 

When he had surveyed his client for some moments, 
Lang spoke. “You have been a master of men for a 
good many years, Mr. Trask. You are accustomed 
to command and to be obeyed. I’m going to talk very 


120 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


frankly to you—meaning no disrespect to your wife. 
But you must not allow her to control you as she is 
doing. It means breaking down the will power which 
has kept you well and strong in spite of your age. 
You will find yourself in an exasperated spirit of rebel¬ 
lion.” Trask nodded affirmation. “You are apt to 
lose your mental poise.” 

“Go crazy?” gasped the old man. 

“We won’t put that name on it, if you please. But 
you mustn’t permit any human being to do your think¬ 
ing for you at your time of life. Your mind is your 
mainspring. Keep it wound up. Your wife seems to 
be indulging in a whim. All pretty women allow whims 
to sway them, without much regard for the feelings of 
others. Mr. Trask, you go back home and kick those 
two servants out of your house! Then you’ll throw 
back your shoulders and feel ten years younger and 
you’ll sleep well tonight.” 

“I can’t do it. I promised her I wouldn’t,” bleated 
Trask. 

“But you can’t endure having ’em in the house any 
longer!” 

“No!” 

“Instruct me as your attorney to attend to their 
case.” 

“I can tell her how you insisted—as my lawyer.” 

“You may tell her that. I’ll go along with you, 
right now. You simply keep Mrs. Trask in her room, 
out of the way.” 

In the stone mansion, after the master had gone 
upstairs to attend to his part of the performance, Lang 
made a conference office of the dining room and sum¬ 
moned the butler and the maid before him. In a 
dozen curt words he expressed his opinion of them and 
discharged them, ordering them to leave at once. 


A WOMAN’S WHIM 


121 


They showed no signs of being abashed or contrite. 
Dudley spoke for both. “Does madam know we are 
being thrown out?” 

“This is not madam’s affair, my man. I am acting 
for your master.” 

“We have an understanding with madam,” Dudley 
insisted. 

“I don’t recognize any such understanding. Get 
out!” 

“We demand that madam be notified of what you’re 
trying to do,” said the butler insolently. 

“What I’m trying to do!” echoed Lang with venom. 
For a long time his hands had been itching to meet 
something solid in the way of opposition, instead of 
that shadowy antagonist with whom he had been bat¬ 
tling. He leaped for the man, seized him by the 
collar and swept him around in a circle on the floor. 
Then he raced Dudley through the rear part of the 
house and kicked him out by way of the tradesmen’s 
door. 

“I’ll tell one of the servants to bring your belongings 
to you! If you try to communicate with Mrs. Trask, 
now or hereafter, I’ll have you in jail.” 

He informed the maid to the same effect, allowing 
her to go to her room under the escort of the mansion’s 
man-of-all-work, giving her a quarter of an hour to 
pack. 

Lang sent for Trask after the premises were clear 
of the offending servants. He waited for the master 
at the foot of the main stairway. “They are gone, bag 
and baggage, Mr. Trask. I’m sorry you did not 
choose to have them arrested.” 

Then it was immediately plain that the wife did 
not intend to be left out of any colloquy between her 
husband and John Lang. The lawyer glanced up and 


122 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


saw her half way down the stairs, where she had 
halted. 

“You have not sent Dudley and Rena away!” 

“I have. I assume the responsibility, Mrs. Trask. 
I prevailed on your husband.” 

“Send for them,” she urged with frenzy. “Call them 
back.” 

“They can never enter this house again. If they 
try it or molest you in any way, I shall have them 
arrested.” 

She descended two steps, beating her hands together. 
“You pledged yourself to be my friend and helper. 
You did! You promised!” 

“I will help you in case of need. I have helped 
you in this matter.” 

“Help? Help?” Though she shrieked the words, 
she was not appealing. There was a frantic irony in 
her tones. She fell and rolled limply down the stairs, 
and lay motionless at the feet of the two men. 

When she did not revive, they lifted her between 
them and carried her to the boudoir on the upper 
floor and laid her on a divan. Lang did not remain. 
He started for the door. 

“You called it a whim. What do you call it now?” 
lamented the old man. 

Lang had a trenchant phrase for use in the case 
of silly women who were determined to have their 
own way; but he went out of the house without con¬ 
fiding the description to the doting husband. 


CHAPTER THIRTEEN 
Ears and Eyes 



N opportunity for an investment was offered 
to Serenus Skidmore Trask. A man 
secured audience with him in his den in 
the stone mansion by making an appoint¬ 
ment over the telephone. The man had 
assured him that this was a really exceptional oppor¬ 
tunity for an investment! Trask was not especially 
impressed and was in the way of turning down the 
request for the interview. Every day he had all sorts 
of salesmen chasing him—every day his mail was filled 
with attractive propositions. 

When he was curtly informing this solicitor-by¬ 
telephone that he was not interested, the man’s tone 
became urgent and significant. Mr. Trask would be 
very sorry, said the speaker, if Mr. Trask did not look 
into this matter above all others. 

Therefore, the timber magnate permitted the man 
to come to the mansion and he looked into the proposi¬ 
tion as far as the other would allow him to look. 
After the man had gone away, Trask ordered his car 
and was driven in a rush to Lang’s law office. 

“I was in here two days ago and told you hell was to 
pay out at my house! I’m here today to say damna¬ 
tion has been added,” raved the old man, unable to 
express the tumult of his emotions except by the 
emphasis of woods verbiage. 

Closeted with Lang in the private office, he stamped 
to and fro, clacking his hard fists together. “I ought 
to have known better than to tie up with any damned 
123 








124 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


woman, no matter who or what she was. I always 
played my hunch of hating ’em—and I was all right 
till I got to be a blasted old fool. I have lost my 
grit and my grip—and I’ve lost the only relative who 
can carry down my name. It’s on account of a woman, 
Lang—it’s all due to a woman!” 

The attorney did not interrupt Trask by questions 
while the old man relieved his high pressure by decla¬ 
mations against his own folly, against women, and 
particularly against a man who had come to him that 
day. “But, oh, my God, Lang, I’m guilty as hell, 
myself, in poor Skiddy’s case!” 

“So am I!” declared the lawyer bitterly. 

When the old man began to lament the loss of his 
nephew, he became calmer and sat down and surveyed 
Lang with a woebegone stare. “I’ve got to see it 
through, I suppose, now ’t my hand has been set to 
the plow. You’ve got to help. The two of us started 
the log a-rolling. I’ve got to dodge scandal and save 
what little peace of mind is still left to me. As I’ve 
said, an infernal rat came to me today, Lang, and he 
wants to sell me something. He says there are two 
witnesses—Dudley and that maid—who heard the talk 
between my wife and my nephew. Good God, Lang!” 
His larynx bulged and shuttled in his withered neck. 
“It’s a terrible thing to put my tongue to! But he 
says the two of ’em saw my wife kill my nephew!” 

“They’re liars, Mr. Trask,” Lang declared with 
reassuring earnestness. “It’s only the familiar story 
of blackmail because you’re rich and because certain 
circumstances help such renegades.” 

“Do you really think so?” Hope gleamed in Trask’s 
dull eyes. 

“It’s mighty evident. What did the sneak ask for— 
how much?” 


EARS AND EYES 


125 


“One hundred thousand dollars. Said he was a 
lawyer representing Dudley and the woman.” 

“All going to show it’s blackmail. They’re offering 
to hide criminal evidence and compound a felony for 
pay.” 

“Is it evidence—did she-” 

“No, no, Mr. Trask! Put it out of your mind that 
she could have done anything of the sort. She knew 
about your will giving the estate to her—she had no 
motive—she could not have wrested the gun away 
from a man so wholly crazed as your nephew was that 
night.” 

“I want to believe it. I can’t believe it the other 
way. But the rat told me the butler and the maid did 
not steal the jewels and rob the safe. My wife was 
paying ’em hush money, so they say—so the rat 
said.” 

“Naturally they’d say that. They’re protecting 
themselves as much as possible in their blackmail 
scheme.” 

“But she admits it—Anita owns up she gave ’em the 
stuff!” The sweat of agonized mental strain was trick¬ 
ling down the channels of the wrinkles on the old 
man’s face. “Lang, I had to have courage from some 
source, after that man left the house—agreeing to give 
me time to think. I went to Anita. I wanted to hear 
her swear on her oath that they are liars. She does 
swear she didn’t kill my nephew—even though I found 
her with the gun in her hand. I did find her holding 
it, Lang! What do you think about it?” 

“Her statement seemed reasonable to me at the 
time. I’m not inclined to doubt it now,” returned 
the lawyer, soothingly. The husband needed some 
sort of consolation at that moment. He was showing 
signs of being about to collapse. 



126 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“But she admits to me she gave ’em the money and 
the jewels. She says she did it for my sake. They 
had threatened to make up a lie about her! She knows 
I’m old and love her, she said, and she wanted to hold 
any more awful trouble away from me. 

“Anything to keep their tongues still, she said! She 
seems to have the right idea of the thing, doesn’t she, 
Lang?” His voice shook with tremulous eagerness; 
he was fortifying his faith in the girl. “And you and I 
are guilty, too, and we’ve got to save her! But it 
was an awful foolish thing for her to do, without 
talking with me, first.” 

“She does seem to lack judgment in many things, 
Mr. Trask,” admitted Lang drily. 

“But she’s only a young girl! She isn’t used to the 
world. She has never known any life except what she 
saw in the North woods, where I found her!” In the 
fervor of exculpation, Trask had forgotten what he had 
told Lang about the girl’s southern origin. The hus¬ 
band remembered suddenly and gulped. “But I’ve 
got to be open and honest with you, Lang, from now 
on, so you can help me. I did find her in the woods. 
I saved her from a hellion. She told me her story. 
I helped her get free from him—he is her brother.” 
He looked away from Lang’s keen gaze and stammered 
when he added, “I gave her the money to go to him and 
fix him forever—and he has left the country.” 

“I hope it’s one case where fix-it money has really 
bought the goods for you, sir. But I place no faith 
in such a method of handling scoundrels. It’s only 
trying to put out a fire with kerosene.” v 

“Then you don’t think I’d better hush up those two 
with more money?” 

“Absolutely — positively — no! If you deal with 
them on such a basis I’ll drop your affairs, sir.” 


EARS AND EYES 


127 


“And if I tell ’em to go to the devil, what then— 
what will you do?” 

“I’ll fight to the last legal ditch for you and Mrs. 
Trask. I give you my word of honor to do it. But I 
don’t think there’ll be any fight. Stand up to them, 
sir! Tell them you won’t be bled for one penny by 
liars. Tell them you’ll have ’em sent over the road for 
blackmail. Fight, Trask, fight!” He beat his fist 
on the arm of the chair. 

“All right! If you’ll carry the burden of the thing, 
I’ll fight. You’re a good lawyer, Lang, a good law¬ 
yer! And you’ll pull us out, won’t you? It’s awful! 
I need to be encouraged. All of a sudden I’m feeling 
old—old!” 

The lawyer looked on his client and was struck 
by the new demeanor of Trask; he was bowed and 
shrunken. 

When the bridegroom had bought that “flock of 
suits,” the art of the tailor had fitted a man who 
stood straight, complacent in his love and filled with 
authority as the head of the Double T. But from the 
moment when he had slumped into the hanging folds 
of his evening garb, looking on the form of his dead 
namesake, Trask had been as Lang saw him then in 
the office—merely a withered simulacrum of what 
Double T had been in the days of potent sway. 

“It will be good to tell Anita what you say—she 
has a lot of faith in you, John Lang!” In that ex¬ 
tremity of his troubles, the husband had no more fire 
in him to supply the torch of jealousy. “But all the 
fight seems to have gone out of me. I’ll send the rat 
to you. I’ll leave it to you to tell him what’s what!” 

The go-between came to Lang the next day. He 
was one Farnum, a disbarred lawyer, a flabby indi¬ 
vidual whom Lang knew and despised. Trying to 


128 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


beat any sense of the enormity of blackmail into a 
person of that sort was like trying to get reaction by 
pounding one’s fist into a mass of freshly mixed putty 
—and Lang realized it and forbore. He threw down 
the gauge of battle and reminded Farnum that a man 
with his record could not hope for mercy from the 
court if another charge of attempted extortion should 
be made. 

“Oh, we don’t intend to push the matter any more, 
so far as selling anything goes, if your side feels that 
way about it,” demurred Farnum. “If Trask doesn’t 
want to buy something, to save his peace of mind and 
a wife, we say nothing more to him. Make the most 
out of it, if that’s blackmail. But my parties heard a 
good deal through the keyhole, in addition to what 
they saw. You being confidential counsel, I suppose 
you know all about the inside of things in the Trask 
family.” Farnum was showing the assurance of one 
who held something in reserve. 

“I know enough to serve me.” 

“All about Mack Templeton, eh?” 

He jabbed the query at Lang and the latter was not 
able to hide his surprise. Here seemed to be an angle 
entirely new. 

“That name started the trouble in the death room,” 
persisted Farnum. “Wouldn’t it be a wise notion to 
get Mrs. Trask to explain to you who Mack Templeton 
is before you let the case go before the grand jury?” 

“I’ll judge the wisdom of that notion after you tell 
me how this Mack Templeton fits in.” 

But Farnum merely parried back with the state¬ 
ment that what he knew about Mack Templeton he 
was keeping to himself. “Ask the lady—she knows. 
And she’ll probably give you a reason why it’s better 
to buy than to bluster in this case.” 


EARS AND EYES 


129 


Lang was not especially impressed. He had a good 
eye for the manner of a witness. Farnum’s shifty tac¬ 
tics indicated only imperfect knowledge on his part, at 
the most. The fellow was endeavoring to work a 
“shoe-string bluff,” so Lang believed. 

He tried on a little bluff of his own, keenly observing 
his man. “I thought I’d give you a chance to hand 
me your version of what you are trying to sell. I see 
you can’t tell me.” Lang took a flyer, working on 
the admission which Trask had made regarding a per¬ 
secutor in the shape of a brother. “Information 
squeezed through a keyhole is pretty slimsy stuff, Far- 
num. Mr. Trask knows all about his wife’s family, 
including her brother, so you may as well throw away 
that ammunition; it’s spoiled.” 

The bluff had worked; Farnum’s face showed he 
was receiving what he considered real information 
which Lang’s manner clothed with convincing author¬ 
ity. Mack Templeton’s value as a weapon, no matter 
what the keyhole revelations had promised, seemed to 
be much diminished. 

“All right! Let the thing go to the grand jury!” 
Farnum rose. “A lot of trouble could have been saved 
by using a little cash in a sensible way. But some 
folks seem to think it’s foolish to spend money for 
anything except clothes and grub.” He went out 
slowly—waiting at the door to give Lang a chance to 
suggest a compromise. The lawyer turned his back. 

Lang, alone, ran over the matter in his thoughts. 
He was paying no heed to Farnum’s threat that the 
case would be presented to the grand jury. It was 
a death which had been officially labelled as suicide. 
There was no motive to prompt the girl wife to kill 
her husband’s namesake nephew on sight. Accusation 
of a young and beautiful woman in Mrs. Trask’s posi- 


130 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


tion would receive little consideration in the district 
attorney’s office, Lang was certain. And he was more 
certain that they who attempted to blackmail would 
not dare to accuse. 

He did not make any inquiries in the Trask family 
regarding one Mack Templeton. He was not interested 
in such a person. He did not want to stir up any more 
unpleasant topics in the stone mansion which had 
lately been the scene of tragedy and attendant, per¬ 
sisting unhappiness. 

But, after a time, Lang became aware of a certain 
ominous stirring under the surface of matters in the 
law courts. On account of his own troubled affairs he 
had become more sensitively acute in the case of 
rumors. 

There’s a grape-vine telephone in legal circles in any 
city. When Lang had become partially convinced that 
certain things were so, in spite of his past skepticism as 
to possible procedure, he went to see the district attor¬ 
ney, and did not relish the undertaking. On account 
of Lang’s triumphs as a regular champion of parties 
accused he was not on very good terms with the prose¬ 
cutor whom he had outwitted so often. 

Lang was precipitantly blunt. “I don’t expect you 
to tell me the secrets of your office, Wilkinson! I’m 
not here to ask questions. I’m here on account of a 
tip. Somebody says you’re thinking of digging up the 
Trask suicide case. As you know, I was in the Trask 
mansion that night and I have personal knowledge to 
back me. You’re depending on two witnesses.” 

“Possibly more,” drawled Wilkinson. 

“Is it also possible you’re seriously thinking of 
bringing the case before the grand jury?” 

“I thought you said you didn’t intend to ask ques¬ 
tions.” 


EARS AND EYES 


131 


“I beg your pardon! I’m going to tell you that 
those two witnesses have attempted to blackmail the 
Trask family on account of the case.” 

“You’re sure of that?” 

“I am.” 

“You don’t love the district attorney’s office, do 
you, Lang? Why didn’t you turn in your evidence 
and have such rascals prosecuted?” 

“I defend—I don’t prosecute.” 

“Yes, that’s your frequent boast.” 

“It’s a wicked thing, Wilkinson, to attack the repu¬ 
tation of a woman and the happiness of a home on any 
evidence such knaves can give in.” 

“The knaves, as you call them, Brother Lang, are 
not yet on trial, thanks to your reticence. But what¬ 
ever their moral character may be, they are human 
beings, with eyes and ears, and as such are capable of 
being witnesses.” 

The prosecutor broke in on more protestation from 
Lang. “Just a moment before we get into too heated 
argument, Lang, about what’s right or wrong or pos¬ 
sible proof. I’m not going to act in this matter—ad¬ 
mitting that I may act—out of any savage desire to 
break up a home or persecute a woman. But this 
thing is getting out of my hands, and out of yours, 
too. Somebody has been leaking. Somebody has been 
slipping just enough to the newspapers to start ’em 
digging around the edges. It may be Farnum’s fine 
hand—I see you know the skunk just as well as I do. 
But you know the newspapers, too!” 

Lang offered the comment of a grunt and made a 
sour grimace. 

“When the newspapers can’t print the whole, they’re 
quite likely to hint at a little, in order to start things,” 
the prosecutor went on. “I don’t need to instruct you, 


132 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Lang. And if the thing goes far enough, and I don’t 
act, what’s the answer?” 

“No one can impugn your motives for giving decent 
people a square deal, when they’re attacked by black¬ 
mailers who are going after revenge because they have 
been turned down.” 

The district attorney shook his finger at Lang. 
“Don’t you believe it, Lang—not when a millionaire 
like Serenus Trask is in the easel We have a general 
election in this State this year. I don’t intend to run 
the chance of having opponents sneer behind my back, 
saying I have taken money to keep a millionaire’s wife 
out of court. If she is innocent and is the victim of 
slander, she’ll be better off when she has been cleaned 
and acquitted. But she’ll only stay year after year 
in hell-fire if the tongues keep wagging.” 

“You have taken me further into your confidence 
than I expected, Wilkinson. I thank you!” said Lang 
coldly. “Now after you have been so frank in admit¬ 
ting what your real motives are in trying the case, I 
can understand how wholly useless it is for me to 
argue with you. Go ahead and get your election 
advertising.” 

He was at the door when the district attorney spoke. 
“Just a moment, Lang! If this case does come to trial 
you’re going to appear for the defense, I take it?” 

“I am.” 

“I’m much obliged for your advice to me to go ahead 
and get advertising. That’s in your line, too—adver¬ 
tising! But in the way of gratitude I’m going to ad¬ 
vise you to keep out of the case. The advertising 
you’ll get this time won’t help you.” 

“Do you think I’m afraid of the damnable hornets 
buzzing behind my back? No! Nor of one who 
buzzes before my face, as you’re doing.” 


EARS AND EYES 


133 


“I was sort of honest in what I just said, Lang. I 
note I don’t get any thanks! The talk about what 
Skiddy Trask said has been hurting you like the devil! 
If you go in and defend a woman who is accused of 
killing him, you’re going to get an awful tongue- 
razooing.” 

“You go ahead, Wilkinson, and have her indicted.” 
He came back a few steps into the room and shook an 
admonitory finger. His resentment was flaming. Now 
he was able to brave one of those who was using a 
weapon which the shade of young Trask had whetted 
behind the veil! “By God, I’ll have her acquitted!” 

“All right! The fight is on!” was the prosecutor’s 
grim acceptance of the challenge. 

His rancorous remembrance of Lang’s past vic¬ 
tories was evident in his countenance when he looked 
at the latter. It was no longer an affair of consider¬ 
ing a woman’s peace of mind or the happiness of a 
family. The two legal gladiators had set foot against 
foot, shield counter to shield, and proposed to fight 
their battle, even if the trophy of the conflict were 
trampled into the mire as they fought. 

The wheel of events began to whirl. 

The grand jury returned an indictment against Anita 
Trask, charging her with the murder of Serenus Skid¬ 
more Trask, the second. She was held without bail 
for trial at the April assizes. 

Though her arrest made a tremendous sensation, the 
astonishment of the public had been discounted in 
some measure. Tongues had been busy. Slander had 
attributed sinister motives to this girl who had come 
out of nowhere. People did not know about the new 
will of Serenus Trask, the elder. It had been evident 
enough that this dazzling beauty had married a man 
like Trask for his money. The natural corollary 


134 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


seemed to be that to this desperate venture she was 
willing to add murder of the blood heir in order to 
secure that money to herself. Human nature is too 
ready to credit abominable suspicions! 

There was also a well circulated rumor that her 
mind was not just right, anyway. It was said she en¬ 
tertained queer ideas, primitive ideas, pagan ideas. A 
certain Mrs. Barron had a great deal to say about 
the pagan whom she had quizzed at the notable recep¬ 
tion in the stone mansion. The spider story was 
dressed up as a declaration of Anita’s code in the case 
of men. John Lang was amazed to find even so dis¬ 
criminating and fair a man as Judge Anderson inocu¬ 
lated with the virus of the popular feeling against the 
accused woman. The judge said as much to Lang in 
the Talisman Club. 

Lang had resumed in some degree his club relations, 
almost in bravado. He was showing by his brusque 
manner a mental attitude which informed his detractors 
they might go to the hot place for all he cared— 
thereby not winning any more favor for himself. 

“Though the question of her guilt, as it appears, is 
not the point I desired to make when I brought the 
subject up,” pursued the judge, “I want to remon¬ 
strate with you, John, for undertaking the defense.” 

“I could not do otherwise, considering my relations 
with Serenus Trask.” 

“But from the point of professional ethics it is 
equally necessary to consider what were your relations 
with the nephew of Serenus Trask. And his wild talk 
in the club that night has winged far, John! Frankly, 
you cannot afford to defy public opinion to this 
extent.” 

“I shall defend Mrs. Trask. My word is pledged, 
sir.” 


EARS AND EYES 


135 


“But the prejudices you’ll stir up may injure her 
cause as much as they harm your career. Be sensible, 
my boy! Show more delicacy! Even if we call your 
stand by no harsher name than bad taste—a flaunting 
display of it affects a professional man to his hurt.” 

“I shall defend Mrs. Trask—even if I’m obliged to 
take to the woods for the rest of my life after I have 
secured her acquittal,” declared the attorney. He 
bowed and walked away from the jurist. 

Though there was a finality of decision in Lang’s 
assertion, there was none of his ironical curtness which 
had offended members on a previous occasion in the 
club. The attorney had replied rather mildly, and 
had shown deep feeling. Some of his sentiments in 
regard to Anita Trask had been considerably modified. 

As her counsel he had been obliged to interview her 
frequently, in the women’s quarters in the county jail, 
always in the presence of her husband. Previous to 
that distressing event he had been obliged to break to 
her the news of her impending arrest. Having made, 
as he thought, a fairly accurate estimate of her emo¬ 
tional character, as she had shown it in the affair of 
the butler and the maid when Lang had brought that 
matter to a climax, the attorney had prepared himself 
for a real ordeal. He had even counselled Trask to 
have a physician in waiting. 

But there was only a pathetic drooping of the red 
lips of the girl wife. “Yes! I have thought it all over. 
I supposed they would go away and lie. I tried to pay 
them not to lie. You say I was wrong. Yes! I don’t 
understand such things very well. But you will help 
me, Sir Mayor! After this, I will not try to do any¬ 
thing for myself; I shall certainly do something wrong. 
I shall not worry. I know you can make everything 
right.” 


136 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


In all the other interviews, in the jail, she was the 
same—resigned, but hopeful—sorrowful, but unafraid, 
ingenuously trusting in his powers, surrendering every¬ 
thing into his keeping as her approved champion. It 
was like a child courageously going through a dark 
lane, confiding in a hand of strength in which her fin¬ 
gers were clasped. 

His sense of chivalry was stirred. He could not 
explain his feelings to any person, even to such a 
charitable man as Judge Anderson. He could only 
hide the steel of his determination under the velvet of 
politeness, knowing all the time he was being blamed 
for obduracy, understanding that the tongue of scan¬ 
dal was busy. 

Trask’s wealth secured many comforts for his wife 
in the house of detention. Much was accomplished in 
hiding the things suggesting restraint. But repeatedly 
she went to the window and pulled aside the draperies 
and touched with piteous fumblings the bars which 
made a captive of her. 

The first time she did so, the old husband screwed 
up his wrinkled face and wept with the frank abandon 
of a child. It is not a pleasant sight when an old man 
blubbers! “I found her in the woods, Lang! Just 
like a beautiful bird! And this is how they have caged 
her. Oh, my God! It’s awful!” 

“We’ll have her out, Mr. Trask. I promise you!” 

“Yes!” agreed the wife. “We leave it all to you; I 
am safe. It’s only a dark night, now. I have slept 
under a tree all night, often, so I could see how pretty 
the morning was when the sun came up. It’ll be morn¬ 
ing very soon, and it will be prettier because the night 
has been so dark.” 

“I’m not crying because I’m afraid for you, with 
Lang on the job,” averred the husband, trying to reas- 


EARS AND EYES 


137 


sure her by apology for breaking down. “I’m crying 
because Skiddy Trask is dead. I’m missing him dread¬ 
fully these days! He was blood to me, Lang, blood 
kin!” 

It was apology—excuse, but there was a great deal 
of feeling in the declaration, nevertheless. The lawyer 
knew how hideously the recollection of tyrannical in¬ 
justice must be clanging in the conscience of Serenus 
Trask; the echo made a dreadful discord in Lang’s own 
conscience. 


CHAPTER FOURTEEN 


At the Bar of Justice 


VEN when the trial of Anita Trask, charged 
with the murder of her husband’s nephew, 
was well into the second week, the district 
attorney had not been able to tear away 
much of the veil in which her personality 
and her antecedents were wrapped. 

There were witnesses called by the prosecution from 
the North country, but the witnesses were few and 
their revelations were vague; under cross-examination 
by Lang those statements became contradictory. There 
was slurring rumor to the effect that the baron of the 
Double T had used his money and his might in the 
North country to bribe and intimidate. 

The defense admitted that the accused wife had 
been in the North country. Counsel Lang cut in ahead 
of the prosecution by introducing a witness to prove 
that she had been married to Serenus Trask up there. 

The witness was a strange and interesting figure who 
attracted general attention. The newspapers were 
filled with descriptions and pictures of him. But he 
resolutely declined to talk to reporters. 

He appeared in court garbed in a frock woven of 
natural wool edged with white rabbit fur. His wool 
boots were white. His hair and beard matched the 
color of his garments. He gave merely the name of 
Ashael—Ashael of Angel Knob. 

He was calm, patriarchal, serene, and with intelli¬ 
gent dignity resisted the efforts of the prosecution to 
secure his family name. 

When he was challenged as to his right to perform 
138 











139 


AT THE BAR OF JUSTICE 

marriages, he pleaded the permission of special privi¬ 
lege to preserve his anonymity and laid before the eye 
of the presiding justice, going alone to the bench, a 
paper. The court allowed his plea, after listening to 
AshaePs ex parte statement delivered in tones too low 
for the courtroom to hear. The marriage was estab¬ 
lished as legal. 

On the stand, Ashael acknowledged that he was 
known in the North as “The Charmer Man.” He 
avowed, under examination, that he helped Nature in 
making cures, asking no fee. He said he felt it to be 
a matter of true duty; he claimed to possess no mys¬ 
terious, personal gift, no uncanny power. He de¬ 
murred when he was attacked as a charlatan. 

“Ever since white pioneers began to struggle with 
the forests on this continent, sir, the remote lumber 
camps have been visited by men who had the power 
to aid in healing without surgery or medicaments. I 
am only one in a long line.” 

He also combated the allegation that he was a faith 
healer. “It is a common human error to give the mys¬ 
terious works of Almighty God a specific name and to 
claim for this sect or that creed or this or that pro¬ 
cedure a monopoly of divine blessings. The Spirit of 
God is in all things and is not to be controlled. But 
even by the weakest it can be invoked and only the 
really humble can be blessed.” 

This figure in white, this calm patriarch of the 
North, was a picturesque interlude in the tragic drama 
of the trial. He appeared, and then he disappeared. 

But all who heard him remembered his words of 
promise regarding the mystic quality in God’s blessing 
of well-being and of being well, a free measure given in 
answer to an honest, meek and contrite appeal. And 
especially did they ponder on his statement that no 


140 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


human being should presume to name or limit, ana¬ 
lyze or monopolize, a fundamental truth as wide and 
deep as the Universe. 

Even John Lang’s cynicism was impressed! He was 
sorry when he learned that old Ashael had gone away 
from the city, as soon as his testimony was finished. 
Lang vaguely promised himself that some day he 
would search out this quaint personage in the North 
country and investigate a philosophy which promised 
comfort to both body and spirit. 

In that trial Lang knew he was fighting prejudice. 
Therefore, he did not hasten the affair. He played the 
thing on a shrewd, psychological basis, as best he could 
manage. 

Day by day, the young wife sat before the eyes of 
her accusers and the court, her aged husband loyally 
at her side. She was garbed plainly. Not a jewel was 
displayed. While the prosecutor flung his verbal stones 
of accusation, her wistful beauty silently appealed. 
When the chief witnesses blustered with bravado and 
lied brazenly about their blackmail plot, her eyes 
timidly sought the faces of the jurymen and made 
earnest protest. To what extent she was playing a 
part was not easily discernible. 

But Serenus Trask was patently not acting his part. 
Day by day, he stumbled weakly to his chair—he stag¬ 
gered when he walked out of the court room. A dread¬ 
ful shadow clouded his countenance. His jowls sagged, 
his hands trembled. Every little while, when there 
was an opportunity, he pulled at Lang’s sleeve. “No 
matter what it costs, I’m staying with her.” 

On one occasion he added, “I’m with her to my last 
dollar, till this trial is over.” 

“What do you mean—‘till this trial is over’?” Lang 
demanded, giving the old man sharp scrutiny. 


141 


AT THE BAR OF JUSTICE 

“I don’t know. Perhaps that isn’t the right way to 
put it. But it mustn’t be said I harbored a woman 
who would kill my only relative. You must get her 
acquitted.” 

John Lang had already made up his mind on that 
point, as he had never done in any other case of his 
career at the bar. The hornets ceased their buzzing 
and were watching. He perceived this to be a case for 
the hearts, not the heads, of the panel. It was not one 
of his battles where success lay in battering down the 
fabric of carefully built, but mere circumstantial, 
evidence. 

There were the two actual eye-witnesses who dog¬ 
gedly and desperately insisted, in spite of his cross- 
examination, that they had seen what they had seen. 
The prisoner, they testified, stood in range of the 
keyhole; she had cajoled the victim with honeyed 
speech; they had seen her arms go around his neck— 
she kissed him—and then the fatal shot! 

Lang was resolved to turn his back on State’s evi¬ 
dence, on the blue-black revolver and the other exhibits 
on the table in the bar enclosure. He decided to stand 
before the rail of the jury box and go straight to the 
hearts with all the power and persuasion of his elo¬ 
quence—his two exhibits for the defense a broken old 
man and a girl whose beauty was like a flower against 
the dark background of the tragedy. 

In the stress of the trial, Lang was not reading the 
newspapers with any care, not even the reports of the 
progress of the case, as the writers viewed it. He did 
skim headlines at his breakfast table. Therefore he 
noticed the report of the finding of the body of one 
Mack Templeton on the slope of a hardwood tract in 
the Brassua region. The papers did not respect the 
sanctity of death in this case. They exposed the lurid 


142 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


record of Templeton as a Border blackleg. The report 
stated there had been no arrest in connection with the 
affair; there was no intimation of anybody being under 
suspicion. The item merely hinted that Templeton, 
from the nature of his iniquities, had made many 
enemies. 

The name of Mack Templeton, whoever he might 
be, had not been brought into the trial of Anita Trask, 
though Lang had waited for it, after the sly suggestion 
made by Farnum. But Lang’s guess as to Farnum’s 
limited knowledge of Templeton had seemed to be 
justified by the silence of the State. 

The counsel for the defense had not asked the 
Trasks privately about a man named Templeton. Lang 
was barred by a rather curious reluctance to pry into 
the matter. As a matter of fact, his attitude toward 
Anita had been to know as little of her past as pos¬ 
sible. The more he could idealize her as a beautiful 
creature of circumstances, he felt, the more he could 
do for her in the line of defense which he had decided 
on. He realized how strange this whim was in the 
conduct of a practical lawyer. 

But he was not dealing coldly and practically with 
this case. When he stopped to wonder what had come 
over him to make him alter his methods as a careful 
lawyer, he was confused and gave up the study of his 
mind. However, not knowing what Farnum had re¬ 
vealed about one Mack Templeton to the prosecution, 
the appearance of this dead man in the public prints 
that morning prompted Lang to arm his cause against 
possibilities. He closeted himself with Anita and her 
husband before the hour set for the resumption of the 
case. 

“He was her brother,” stated Trask, when the mat¬ 
ter was broached by the lawyer. “I brought the news- 


AT THE BAR OF JUSTICE 143 

paper this morning and broke the news. It has been 
an awful shock to her. I told you about him.” 

Lang turned away from the strange brilliancy he 
had found in Anita’s eyes. 

“You spoke, as I remember it, of paying him money 
to go out of the country.” 

“Anita paid him. I gave her the money. She could 
handle him best.” Trask muttered the statement and 
gazed at the ceiling. 

“I paid him the money,” she declared. 

Lang did not look at her. He had the curious feel¬ 
ing, in more intense degree, that he ought to preserve 
all his illusions in regard to the girl. 

“The money may have been the prompting induce¬ 
ment for the murderer. The paper says not much 
money was found on the body,” suggested the lawyer. 

“He was a general renegade,” declared Trask. “He 
was a bad man on the Border.” 

“He tried to make me cheat people,” supplemented 
the girl. “At first, he said he wouldn’t go away. He 
wanted to stay so he could keep on getting money 
from my husband.” 

Lang was looking at the floor, meditating. He 
swung his gaze slowly and saw Anita’s feet, crossed, 
peeping from under her black skirt. She had hooked 
them, ankle over instep, and he noted a tremor in her 
limbs. He looked at her hands, which were clasped in 
her lap. They were locked tightly, the fingers whit¬ 
ened by the pressure. But when he looked at the face 
it was immobile, though the light in her eyes had grown 
more brilliant. 

Emotionally, at the moment, she was a cord 
stretched to the breaking point; when she had spoken, 
there was a high-pitched twang in her tones. 

“I’m very, very sorry,” said Lang as soothingly as 


144 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


he would have addressed a child. “It’s a distressing 
matter to come at this time when you need all your 
strength. Hold to your grit, Mrs. Trask, with all 
your might. You have won a great deal for yourself 
by your manner in court. This is the day when you 
must be absolutely the mistress of your soul! The 
prosecutor argues today and he will say bitter things 
about you. But while he is speaking hateful words 
you must keep in mind that he talks because the State 
pays him a salary. Keep thinking of the jurymen as 
kind men who will listen to reason.” 

“They will listen to you—they will listen to you!” 
she cried. 

“I hope so. I’m going to talk to them with all the 
power that is in me.” 

She leaped from her chair, ran to him, flung her 
arms about his neck before he recovered his wits suf¬ 
ficiently to prevent, and kissed him. He had some 
difficulty in bending back her arms and freeing him¬ 
self from her clutch. 

“I am not afraid! I am not afraid!” she kept say¬ 
ing. “You can save me!” 

“I don’t care what it costs,” mumbled Trask. He 
was swinging his head to and fro on his outstretched, 
scraggy neck. “I don’t care—for money or anything 
else, now! Get her out of it, Lang.” 

Lang was free from that frantic embrace. He was 
thinking on what the old man had said weeks before: 
“I wanted to pry her away, like I’d push off a snake.” 

Lang was not conscious of any sort of abhorrence, 
but he fervently wished that another man’s wife had 
not made such a display of emotion in the presence 
of the man. He looked at his watch. It was time to go 
into the court room. He ushered the ill-assorted pair 
ahead of him. 


CHAPTER FIFTEEN 

The Verdict of the Jury 

MMANDING strained attention and 
attended by tense interest, the counsel 
for the defense was finishing his plea. 
Another speaker might have tried to 
secure his effect by volume of voice. 
Lang’s peroration was in a tone solemnly hushed. 
The listeners in the crowded court room leaned for¬ 
ward to catch his half-whispered words—his speech 
tremulous with the intensity of his appeal. Previously, 
in assailing the motives and the methods of the State’s 
witnesses, his voice had been a trumpet clarion of 
invective. 

But when he referred to the devoted husband he 
gently, reverently dwelt upon an old man’s sorrow. 
When he pointed to the prisoner, extolling her wifely 
affection as partaking also of the nature of filial love, 
he made it plain that outsiders’ mischief and wilful 
distrust often meddle with the affairs of a union which 
a cynical world suspects of being dominated by ulterior 
motives. 

The chamber was dim with the approaching twi¬ 
light. No bailiff had the hardihood even to tiptoe to 
the switchboard and turn on the lights. The speaker 
was dealing with the sanctity of wedded love, even 
though youth had mated with age; his respectful 
reserve seemed to call for the shadows of the vanishing 
day. 

“A play for the jurymen’s hearts, not their heads— 
145 











146 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


and damn me if it isn’t a peach! ” whispered the State’s 
attorney-general to Wilkinson. 

“The only thing to save us is the night-recess be¬ 
tween his plea and your summing up, General! Of 
course, the court will adjourn after he’s finished,” 
predicted the district attorney. 

But it proved to be a day of new features in the 
court room! The justice broke the profound silence 
which followed Lang’s last words. 

“You may proceed, General Phair,” he directed the 
State’s chief prosecutor. 

Then came the lights—dome-chandelier and all the 
bracket lamps—flooding the chamber with prosaic 
radiance. The spell was gone. The attorney-general 
had his own keen sense for effects; he must stand forth 
in the hard lights and deal cruel blows in the name of 
the State, and he realized that all the psychology of 
the thing was to his prejudice. He hesitated. 

The justice apparently supposed the hesitation to 
arise from the lateness of the hour. “If we were merely 
dealing with evidence, General, I would observe the 
usual procedure, and adjourn till morning. But this 
case has been long before the court on trial. Anxiety 
on both sides is now acute. Proceed, sir! My charge 
will be brief. The gentlemen of the panel shall have 
this case for their consideration tonight.” 

The counsel for the defense paid only scant heed to 
what the attorney-general was saying in the summing 
up of accusatory evidence. Lang did note, with pen¬ 
cil and pad, but rather indifferently, certain portions of 
the judge’s charge to the jury to which the defense 
might file exceptions if there should arise occasion to 
move for a new trial. 

The judge charged briefly. He was not friendly to 
the defense. There were listeners, among the members 


THE VERDICT OF THE JURY 147 


of the bar, who felt as though His Honor were endeav¬ 
oring to negative in some degree the emotional appeal 
of the trial—to show the panel that facts alone should 
govern their findings. 

Lang felt singularly calm while he smoked his pipe 
in the anteroom after the jury had retired. He had 
looked into the eyes of those jurymen—and eyes had 
always had a real message for him! 

When bustle at the doors and the crier’s call 
announced the jury as ready to report, Lang smiled. 
The panel had been out a scant hour. That brief de¬ 
liberation signified much to him; apparently there had 
been no long arguments in that locked room to bring 
soft-hearted jurymen into line for a conviction. 

The verdict, therefore, was accurately discounted in 
advance by the defense’s lawyer who stood composedly 
awaiting it. The court room was crowded though the 
hour was late; the people had remained. 

Replying to the demand of the clerk of the court, 
the foreman shouted with a sort of triumphant note in 
his voice, “Not guilty!” 

There was applause! It was kept up persistently 
notwithstanding the customary and conventional 
threats by the court officers. While the applause con¬ 
tinued Anita leaped from her chair, avoided the hands 
her husband reached to her, and threw herself upon 
Lang’s breast, sobbing hysterical gratitude. He found 
her utter abandon distressful. It was like a rescued 
animal expressing gratefulness, attaching itself devot¬ 
edly to a newly adopted master! Only by considerable 
force did the attorney manage to unwind her arms 
from around his neck. 

“It’s truly a great and kissful day for our celebrated 
Champion of Innocence!” observed Larry Devon to a 
confrere. “I can hardly blame him for taking his time 


148 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


in handing the salvaged lady back to her husband! 
It’s a popular verdict, at any rate. Wilkinson was a 
damn’d fool to butt in and have her indicted.” 

That sentiment, expressed more mildly, ran from 
mouth to mouth in the court room. 

When Lang placed the girl wife in the arms of her 
old husband and, a moment later, led them out of the 
chamber to an anteroom, women sobbed frankly as 
the united pair passed along the aisle which the spec¬ 
tators formed; there were earnest congratulations, and 
gloved hands patted Anita comfortingly. 


CHAPTER SIXTEEN 
The Verdict of the Husband 


HEN Lang had shut the door of the con¬ 
ference room Anita again embraced her 
savior, clinging to him in spite of his 
remonstrance and resisting his efforts to 
free himself. As Lang had discovered 
long before, her power of expression by speech was 
limited; in times of mental stress words failed her and 
she strove to interpret her emotions by actions. This 
physical demonstration of her gratitude was now espe¬ 
cially embarrassing under the eyes of the husband. 

Trask wore a peculiar and complex facial aspect 
which the lawyer was not able to understand, exactly. 
Mere jealousy would have been obvious and the old 
man’s bodeful scowl would have been divided between 
the two. However, he was plainly centering all the 
venom of his gaze on Anita. 

“I’d thought we’d wait in here for a few minutes 
until the crowd has scattered,” explained the counsel to 
Trask. 

Lang was unclasping Anita’s fingers, one by one, 
from his arm and she was continually renewing her 
frantic clutch on him. “Then you can send for your 
car and take Mrs. Trask home.” 

Trask gritted his teeth and mumbled something. 

“And I wish you’d prevail upon your wife to be 
seated and to quiet herself,” urged Lang. “Please 
step over here, Mr. Trask, and calm her.” 

Old Double T had posted himself on the opposite 
149 











150 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


side of the table in the room. In this manner there was 
a suggestion of retreating behind a barricade. What 
Lang found puzzling in Trask’s demeanor was the 
expression of some kind of fear and abhorrence min¬ 
gled with his glowering rage. He made no move to 
come and take his wife to himself. In spite of what 
his face hinted in the way of resoluteness, the old 
man’s physical weakness was apparent. He tottered, 
swaying from heels to toes as he stood there. It was 
more evidence of the failing powers he had been reveal¬ 
ing in the court room during the progress of the trial. 

When he spoke it was with the thick utterance of 
a paralytic who was trying to manage a stiff, wobbly 
and unwieldy tongue. “She’s acquitted, eh? You’ve 
got her free, Lang? Good lawyer! Always said you 
were. Sounded like I said ‘Good liar.’ Oh, no! I 
didn’t say it. Something’s the matter with my tongue.” 
He set his fingers on the refractory member and wag¬ 
gled it in his mouth, as if he were trying to break its 
fetters. 

“I wouldn’t undertake to talk much now, if I were 
you,” urged Lang. 

By exertion of main strength he managed to seat 
Anita in a chair and he quickly stepped away from 
her. He hoped to calm Trask by separating himself 
from the woman. In the mania of jealousy it was 
likely enough that the aged husband had been wrought 
upon by her show of gratitude expressed by extrava¬ 
gant blandishments and kisses. Trask braced himself 
against the table and managed speech more coherently. 

“Now is the time to talk. I’ve been bottling it up! 
Trial’s over, hey? She’s all free and clear! They 
can’t say she killed my nephew—only heir—my name¬ 
sake—and that I harbored her after the job. Law says 
she is innocent. Damned good law, eh? I stood by 


THE VERDICT OF THE HUSBAND 151 


her. Right to the end! Good point you made about 
me in your plea! It worked well with the jury. I 
did my part to the letter, hey?” 

Trasks excitement was increasing. He lunged for¬ 
ward but recovered his balance and again propped 
himself on the table by his shaking arms. 

“I protest, Mr. Trask! You must get home. There 
has been too much excitement for all of us today.” 

“There’s got to be a little more—right now. You 
can’t stop a runaway sled-load of logs on a ramdown 
after the snubbing warp has parted. Let her run! 
That’s the way! I’m a lumberman, and I know! I’m 
a good lumberman—I ought to have stuck to that line 
and nothing else!” 

The old man was swinging his head slowly from side 
to side. His eyes were very bright, but the impedi¬ 
ment in his speech made him appear like a babbler 
who was not just sure of his wits. 

“Mrs. Trask, prevail upon your husband to go home 
with you. Talk to him. Urge him!” 

“You wait till I tell you to talk to me,” commanded 
Trask, extending a wavering finger to emphasize his 
command to his wife. “Who is running my family, 
Lang? You ve had her sent scot-free—that’s your 
job. But I’ll run my family. Good God, I haven’t any 
family!” He almost screamed that, but his voice 
dropped at once into the husky babbling. “Nobody to 
be Serenus Skidmore Trask of the Double T! Skiddy 
said it was a homely name. But it has stood for some¬ 
thing! He wasn’t killed by the wife I married—the 
law says he wasn’t. So, that’s locked away. No more 
about that.” 

He leaned further over the table, his hard eyes 
searching his wife’s face. 

“I helped the trial to go on all smooth even when the 


152 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


piece came out in the newspapers about the dead man 
in the Brassua woods. I wouldn’t do a thing to put a 
cloud over that pretty face you showed to the jury. 
Must have you acquitted! That’s the kind of a stayer 
I am! But now—now—we’re going to try a case of 
our own—right here! I gave you money so you could 
pay it over to Mack Templeton. Did you pay 
him?” 

“Yes!” As on a previous occasion her voice had the 
twang of a taut bowstring. 

“Where did you pay him?” 

“He came in his canoe to the Brassua Deadwater. 
I paid him in the woods, at a place he and I knew and 
where I had told him to come.” 

In spite of her tense manner, she spoke quietly as 
if she were copying the style of the witnesses in the 
court room where she had been listening for so many 
days. 

“Where did he go after you paid him?” 

“I don’t know.” 

“Where did you think he went?” 

“Away—to leave the country.” 

Lang had folded his arms and was listening intently; 
these were the questions which he, himself, wanted to 
put to Anita Trask. 

“And you committed no crime against him?” 

“No!” 

Trask broke out into hideous profanity—then he 
checked himself. “I don’t say but what he deserved 
to be killed. He was a renegade. But you didn’t 
commit a crime against him, hey, and now you will 
commit one against me?” 

“No, no!” she expostulated. 

“I say yes! And it’s a crime next to the biggest 
one a wife can commit against a husband. You’re 


THE VERDICT OF THE HUSBAND 153 


lying! Lying to me—that’s your crime—and I don’t 
deserve it.” 

‘Tm telling you the truth.” 

Again he cursed her. “Now you’re lying about a 
lie! Any woman who will do that will go on to the 
bigger crime when she gets a chance. Right here, a 
few moments ago, before my face and eyes-” 

“Trask!” cried Lang with a veritable explosion of 
sound. 

“Anita, say it again—tell me you paid him the 
money,” insisted the old man, abandoning a line which 
seemed to be dangerous. 

“I did pay it to him.” 

Trask paused for a full half minute. 

Then he went on, his tongue running away in the 
stampede of doubts and emotions which he had been 
holding in leash, “There are good reasons why you 
shouldn’t have paid the damnation scoundrel. I have 
been ready and waiting for you to come across, of 
your own accord, and tell me what happened. Ever 
since we’ve been married I’ve been waiting! Ready 
to understand! You might have stood up to him and 
said you wouldn’t allow your husband’s money to be 
wasted on him. You might have told him how sure 
you were of me—how I would protect you against 
anything he could do in the way of a grudge if he 
didn’t get the money. There was even the chance of 
your coaxing him to be decent and go away satisfied 
with the money he had stolen from others. I was ex¬ 
plaining to myself! I was giving you all those chances 
in my thoughts. I didn’t dare to think anything else 
of you, except what was on the square. I wouldn’t 
admit to myself that you would lie to me. I say, I was 
waiting for you to get ready to offer me the truth on 
your own hook. Then I would have stood by you to 



154 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the limit. But you have lied! By God, you didn’t pay 
that money.” He shrieked the accusation. 

“I did,” she wailed. 

“I told you how your satchel was lost off the sledge 
when we came down from the woods. You were watch¬ 
ing that satchel close, too! But I got into it. And I 
found this in it!” 

Out of his breast pocket, tugging hard because the 
packet bulked largely, he pulled something neatly tied 
and carefully sealed. He broke the seals. He showed 
the contents. There was much money in bills of large 
denominations. “That’s what I found in the satchel 
before I threw it away—and you thought it was lost 
in the woods and would never come to light to bother 
you. Damn you, you didn’t pay him!” 

Whether she was innocent or guilty, a frank liar or 
a mere opportunist who had shirked a task and avoided 
the awkward truth, Lang was not able to decide while 
he surveyed her. She had control of herself again. 
She was impassive. She sat straight in her chair. Her 
round eyes did not flinch under Trask’s rage. 

“I thought it was as well to tell you I had paid him. 
He said he was going away. He said he had been 
thinking it over and would not persecute a sister when 
she had a chance to be happy with a good man.” 

There was a sneer of incredulity in the next question. 

“So Mack Templeton pushed away the money and 
went off, and you didn’t see him again?” 

“He said he was leaving the country.” 

“And on the night of the same day—on that night, 
all of a sudden, you changed your mind and said we 
could get married, eh? And I had taken out a mar¬ 
riage license a month before, but you wouldn’t go 
ahead till that night!” 

“I didn’t know what my brother would do—till all 


THE VERDICT OF THE HUSBAND 155 


had been arranged with him. I was afraid of him. I 
told you so.” 

Trask came around the table to her, the packet of 
banknotes in his clutch. 

“I never saw your Mack Templeton! You asked 
me to write my orders to him when I gave you that 
money. I suppose there was a Mack Templeton! At 
any rate they have found his body in the woods. Why 
were you so devilish afraid of what he would do? 
Who was he?” 

Her impassivity was disturbed. The old man again 
shouted the question. There was a significance in his 
tones. 

“My brother!” 

“If you’re lying to me again, I’ll see you in hell 
before I’ll put out a hand or a dollar to get you out of 
more trouble. And trouble probably is coming!” 

She winced. 

He raved on. “By the Almighty God, I’ll get to the 
bottom of this thing. I’m going into the North woods. 
I’ll take my lawyer, here, with me. If we find you in 
another lie, after you have had this chance to tell us 
the truth so we can help you, look out for yourself!” 

This sudden move of Trask in taking John Lang 
into the thing as a partner in truth-seeking produced 
a sort of galvanic spasm in the woman. “I wanted to 
tell the truth. But I tried to keep you happy,” she 
cried. 

“Who was that man, I ask you!” 

She looked straight at Lang. She was defending 
herself in his eyes; if he were to probe in the North 
it would be with surety—this potent man—and a quick 
impulse urged her that she would best serve her need 
by laying her secret in his hands instead of waiting 
to have it dragged from her to her shame! 


156 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


With her eyes entreating Lang, she replied to Trask. 
“He was my husband. He wanted me to make believe 
marry you. He wanted to keep his hold on me. Then 
he would take the money I coaxed from you! Keep 
on taking more and more! That’s the kind he was.” 

“You were that!” rasped the old man, a rattle in his 
throat. 

“I had the right to marry you, after he was dead!” 

“How did you know he was dead?” squalled the 
husband shaking the packet of money over her head. 

“There was a man—he followed us through the 
woods. He was waiting. I think he knew about the 
money—he—he—must have killed Templeton!” 

Trask was staggering to and fro. She rose hastily 
and put out her hands to him, trying to steady him. 

He retreated, his face rigid with hideous fear. He 
stumbled back against the table and swung his arms 
violently to keep her away. “You damnable snake! 
I’ve felt it before. I’m afraid. I’ll be the next you 
sting! Keep away!” 

In his frenzy and his weakness when she kept trying 
to get closer to him, he employed the only thing at hand 
as a weapon of defence, hardly realizing what he did 
use. He flung in her face the packet of money. The 
banknotes filled the air like a cloud of leaves blown 
by the puff of a sudden gale. They fell upon her head 
and drifted down over her, sticking to the beads and 
the fabric of her gown. 

Before Lang could reach Trask to stay him and to 
put himself between the old man and the woman whom 
the husband so bitterly feared in that horrible reaction 
from slavish love, Trask slumped downward, his el¬ 
bows and back scraping slowly against the edge of the 
table. There was a dull gritting of his teeth; and a 
sluggish, ominous convulsion twisted his limbs till the 


THE VERDICT OF THE HUSBAND 157 


joints cracked. Then he pitched forward and fell 
heavily. 

The wife screamed and hid her face against Lang’s 
breast, seeking a shield behind which she could avoid 
the dreadful spectacle. It was a natural impulse on 
her part, and Lang did not repulse her; he even put his 
arm about her, appealing to her to be calm. He strove 
to draw her away from that scene; at first, there 
seemed to be no mistaking the grim nature of the col¬ 
lapse of the old man. 

Therefore, when bailiffs came running and flung 
open the door, summoned by the thud of the fall and 
the scream of the woman, they found Serenus Trask 
motionless on the floor, with money scattered about 
him and over him, and his wife clasped in another 
man’s arms—according to the evidence furnished by 
what their startled gaze beheld. 

“He’s still breathing,” reported one of the officers, 
kneeling, his hand on Trask’s breast. 

Then for three days and nights Trask went on 
breathing, lying on his bed in the mansion which he 
had so joyously fitted for his bride. He did not open 
his eyes or move his hands, and his jaws were rigidly 
set. 

Lang, looking down on him, could not wholly put 
away the grim suspicion that Serenus Trask was con¬ 
scious, that he was using his will to subjugate a body 
which rebelled against death and that he was dying 
because he had resolved to do so to get away some¬ 
where, just as he would have made up his mind to take 
a trip to his barony in the North country. 

When Anita was in the room he breathed stertor- 
ously, a long pause between each breath, as if he strove 
to starve his lungs. 

On the third night he stopped breathing forever. 


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN 



One, as an Example 

N the day after the funeral of Serenus Skid¬ 
more Trask, John Lang marched into the 
county court house, passed through the 
law library with the manner of one pur¬ 
suing a matter of especially urgent busi¬ 
ness, and strode into the attorneys 7 lounge, a smoking 
room connected with the library. 

A dozen lawyers were in the room, and Larry Devon, 
as was quite his habit, was doing most of the talking. 
He stopped talking when Lang swung through the 
door. 

The new arrival’s countenance revealed how sig¬ 
nificant he found that cessation of speech. He went 
straight to Devon, and more than ever he conveyed 
the impression of having come for a special purpose 
and of intending to make a quick job of his business. 

“Still at it, Devon, are you?” he queried crisply. 
He tossed his hat on a table and took his stand in 
front of the attorney. “Sorry to interrupt you! But 
I’m claiming the right to grab in when my private 
affairs are tongue-lashed.” 

“There’s no particular discussion of your affairs 
going on here, John,” protested Devon. But his em¬ 
barrassed tone was unconvincing. 

“By your calling it a discussion you have narrowly 
escaped having me call you a liar. However, you’re 
a lawyer and are dodging the truth by your choice of 
descriptive words. I’ll admit it’s not a discussion. It’s 
a monologue by you! You ought to have it down pat 
158 










ONE, AS AN EXAMPLE 


159 


by this time. You have been rehearsing it enough. 
I have been on your trail. I’m here!” 

“But here —this room—is not a suitable place for 
settling any trouble, Mr. Mayor,” averred one of the 
bystanders. 

There was no misunderstanding the mood of Lang 
or the manner in which he had planted himself in front 
of Devon. All the men in the room were well aware 
of the provocation, in case Lang had eavesdropped 
and caught the tenor of the attorney’s latest remarks. 

“Admitted! But this is the place where all of you 
have been condoning slander of myself and my affairs. 
Such slander has been going on for weeks in this room 
and in plenty of other rooms of this city. The talk has 
been behind my back. I have decided to face one rep¬ 
resentative of the band of slanderers—and that is now 
and here, and I don’t care what the room is.” 

“Lang, you’re going too far!” objected another 
lawyer. 

“I’m going farther! I propose to take this one man 
right here before the rest of you and make a test case 
which will cover the situation. After that, slanderers 
in general may get to know how to govern themselves 
in the matter of my affairs. Hold on, Devon! You 
stand where you are!” 

“I don’t propose to be a party to a brawl in public.” 

“You have been making your talk about me in pub¬ 
lic. Don’t be so shy, all of a sudden. Do you dare tell 
me what you have just been saying to these men?” 

Devon’s face was pale. “This is brawling, I insist, 
and I stand on my dignity as a gentleman!” 

“Do so! I stand here on my two feet as a man— 
a man who has been reviled and lied about, all his 
motives misconstrued and his innocent acts twisted 
into deeds of infamy. You’re head and front of the 


160 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


gang, Devon. That’s why I’m taking you. You have 
run the whole gamut from innuendo to accusation. 
You have held me responsible for the wreck of the 
Trask family. You have said young Trask committed 
suicide because I drove him to it. You have helped to 
spread the slander that old Trask died after a fit of 
jealous rage because he found me embracing his wife. 
The dirty slur that I am after the Trask millions—the 
whole estate, including the widow, is a part of your 
alleged humor, I suppose! You haven’t wasted any 
time in setting me out as a fast worker! You have 
pitched the tune, and the others are singing it from one 
end of the city to the other. No real man can calmly 
discuss such things with you, or get anywhere by 
denying and damning. So, here! I start with you!” 

He imprisoned the lawyer’s neck in the grip of his 
left hand and with the flat of his right hand he beat 
Devon up, threw the detractor from him and dusted 
his palms. 

“Any remarks?” he demanded truculently, whirling 
to face the other men. 

“I’d merely like to inquire what you think a per¬ 
formance of this sort gets you?” blurted one in the 
group. 

“You’re next!” declared the violent defender of a 
reputation. 

But another stepped between the attacker and the 
intended victim. The intermediary was Judge Ander¬ 
son who had come hurrying from the law library, 
his finger closed in a big volume as a bookmark. 

“John, please step this way with me!” 

The infinite gentleness of the venerable jurist pre¬ 
vailed. Lang went along, but clearly he was still vin¬ 
dictive and was nerving himself to argue the case to his 
own advantage. However, Judge Anderson kept en- 


ONE, AS AN EXAMPLE 


161 


tirely away from the case—he did not mention the 
subject of the quarrel. 

“My son, why don’t you go away from town for a 
time? Go where it’s quiet—go fishing!” he advised. 

“I’m going! I’m leaving this afternoon.” 

“I wish you had gone this forenoon!” 

“I waited in order to toss a little clarifier into the 
situation,” was Lang’s grim rejoinder. “It will work 
while I’m away. If it doesn’t, so much the worse for 
those who drive me to extremes.” 

“Go into the woods,” insisted the judge. “I used to 
go there in my young days and fight with myself, 
instead of staying in town and fighting with others. 
I understand the fire that’s in you, John. It was a long 
time before I could put out the fires in myself.” The 
pat of the old man’s hand was like a benediction. “It 
makes a hot blaze—the wrong sort of pride! Deep 
down in your heart, John, don’t you feel as if you need 
to go away and fight fires?” 

The tears which dimmed Lang’s eyes were not those 
of sudden conversion. He was not a man to be speedily 
converted by another. But in the mental torture of the 
past weeks he had wrung from his own soul an ac¬ 
knowledgment of fault and passionate regret. His 
emotions were in line with the gentle jurist’s searching 
understanding. 

Lang had begun his argument with himself by the 
vengeful thought that unless he did go away he might 
turn on some malignant gossiper and kill him as an 
example for the others. 

Then remorse had battled with his rancor. Al¬ 
though he was not ready to confess that he had been 
wholly wrong, he was conscious of a poignant yearning 
to square himself generally—but first of all to come 
into candid, honest peace with his own soul. His emo- 


162 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


tions were too complex to admit of a definite under¬ 
standing with himself. Remaining there in close con¬ 
tact with affairs, facing the folk of the town, he was 
wofully, utterly unable to rise to a clear view of his 
own nature—uncertain whether to arraign his pride 
on the charge of selfishness or to find it honest in intent 
and acquit it of blame. 

He was homesick for the silent aisles of the great 
forests of the North. He wanted to mount into the 
high places and to be alone and weigh himself in the 
balance of self-judgment. Over and over he had mur¬ 
mured the lines, 

“And o’er the hills, and far away 
Beyond the utmost purple rim, 

Beyond the night, across the day—” 

He had stopped right there, balking at the suggestion 
of a woman’s companionship. He was not ready to 
own up to any fear of women. But his recent associa¬ 
tion with them seemed to be exerting a particularly 
malign influence on his affairs. 

He was pertinaciously insisting that his love for 
Reba Donworth was enduring. He was honest enough 
at last to realize that the insistence partook of des¬ 
perate anxiety to prove to himself that he was not a 
weak vacillator. However, he felt a strange disinclina¬ 
tion to go into her presence. 

That day the widow of Serenus Trask had sum¬ 
moned him, beseeching his aid in her business affairs. 
He realized fully his duty; it was to go to her and 
assume the burden of the great estate, as the Trask 
attorney. But he was remembering the dreadful scene 
when Trask was stricken and the lament, “I’m afraid!” 
Something of the same quality of thought was in Lang’s 


ONE, AS AN EXAMPLE 


163 


consciousness when he had sent the widow a message, 
declaring he must go away to the woods for a few 
days, pleading the need of rest after the strain of the 
trial. 

He was dealing with all these mental processes while 
his mentor waited with understanding patience in the 
private chamber of the court house. 

When Lang finally shook himself free from these 
thoughts and determinations, and looked up at Judge 
Anderson, the younger man did not try to conceal his 
new emotion. He put out his hand and slowly set 
it into the understanding grasp the jurist gave him. 

“Go on as you are going! You’ll come out into the 
sunlight farther along the path, my son!” 

Outdoors the spirit of May was sending her balmy 
breath ahead of her coming. Lang could shut his eyes 
and behold in vision the budding woods of the North 
and hear the tumbling of the spring floods—the laugh¬ 
ter of the little brooks of the Brassua and the hilarious 
roar of their big brother, the river. 

He started for the North that afternoon, with a cer¬ 
tain comforting sense of having more than one reason 
for going there. 

That he was mayor of the city, and was turning 
his back on his duties—this fact merely counted as one 
among his reasons for desiring to escape. Inwardly 
he was still disparaging the honor which had come to 
him. In his present situation he loathed an office that 
constantly exposed him to hateful contact. The city, 
under its revised charter, had a council of five. The 
president of that council became automatically the 
acting mayor, in the absence of the mayor himself. 

In his disgust, Lang was sourly minded to allow the 
politicians to do as their inclinations prompted—he 
would not hamper them—he intended to send his res- 


164 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


ignation down from the North country, to be acted on 
as political expedient or as the city’s best interests 
required. Personally he wanted to be done with 
politics. 


CHAPTER EIGHTEEN 
As Others See Us! 


HE walls between the chambers of Debois’s 
house on the Brassua’s remote upper 
waters were thin—only matched boards 
which had spread and split when the 
building settled. Eavesdropping was easy 
—was unavoidable when guests did not whisper. 
Therefore, John Lang heard the news that he had 
gone into the North country to wait for Anita Trask 
in order that a good understanding, which had started 
before the death of Old Double T, might be cemented 
by marriage up there where society meddlers could not 
peer and pry. 

There were two men in the next chamber; one of 
them had arrived by buckboard after Lang had re¬ 
tired to his room. The attorney had tramped to far 
brooks that day and he was healthily weary. 

Lang had been staying for a week at Debois’s place. 
He dressed in rough clothes, had allowed his beard to 
grow and gave his name as Lane. He had the feeling 
that he wanted to be another man for a time. It was a 
relief, considering the state of his mind in regard to 
humanity. 

The men in the next room were fishermen from the 
city; they had been discussing metropolitan affairs. 
The new arrival had come to join his friend at 
Debois’s. 

“They wouldn’t have the nerve to get married so 
soon,” objected the man to whom the news had been 
imparted. 

“Do you know Lang?” 



165 













166 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“I have heard about him. I never saw him.” 

“Don’t you worry any about his not having nerve. 
Nerve is his main asset. The story goes now that he 
dug that girl up and sicked her on to old Trask—made 
the match so as to turn a trick with the money, as he’s 
doing. It’s certainly an easy way for a lawyer to make 
a few millions.” 

“Say, look here! I don’t believe any such thing of 
a man with the reputation John Lang has had.” 

“The best of ’em cash in on a reputation when the 
right time comes and if the stakes are big enough! I 
don’t know Lang either—not personally. But it’s a fact 
that he stood up in the Talisman Club and admitted 
how he had driven young Trask to commit suicide— 
and be damned to such a coward—or words to that 
effect!” 

Lang gritted his teeth. The snowball of gossip does 
roll rapidly down the slope of credulity; it gathers 
muck of slander and stones of false accusation unto 
itself, and becomes an avalanche unless it is stayed! 

“He wouldn’t eliminate the heir and brazen the 
thing out, would he, unless he had designs on the 
estate? In estimating motives and what a man really 
is after, you’ve got to link together the things he 
does in going after it. Have you ever seen the girl old 
Trask married?” 

“No!” 

“Well, I have! I’ve seen her riding along the street 
in her car. And if she can’t make a man chase his 
grandmother with an ax—at any rate with a stocking¬ 
ful of wet sand, simply by lifting her finger and prom¬ 
ising a kiss, you can consider my judgment a dead 
one, and can call the coroner.” 

“And that accounts for Lang sitting in as he has 
done, eh?” 


AS OTHERS SEE US! 


167 


“That girl and the millions, yes! We’ve got to be 
good to ourselves in this world, man! Dad hammer 
it, I’m for sale, myself, for a cussed big-sight less than 
what Lang is raking in. He could have got away with 
it in a lot smoother style—and the smooth way is his 
style—if the girl hadn’t made so much of a public 
fuss over him and hadn’t gabbled so much to women 
about how dear and close he was to her. Not much in 
the shape of think-works up here, I’m afraid!” The 
sound-carrying quality of those walls was such that 
Lang could hear the chap rap his forehead with his 
knuckles. “But when they’re married and arrive back 
from—well, Europe, we’ll say, then everybody will 
kowtow! It’s what money can do when there’s money 
enough!” 

In the experiences of his legal practice, John Lang 
had been obliged to examine carefully the seamy side 
of human nature instead of doing what the majority 
do, accept the fabric of personality as it looks and as 
it fits according to outward show. He understood 
fully the infinite and secret meanness of the human 
mind when the smaller natures which make up the 
great herd perceive an opportunity to join in a mass 
attack on one whose manifest probity in the past has 
been a subtle rebuke to meanness, malice and moral 
turpitude. 

There had been a time when he would have con¬ 
sidered the tattle in the next room as of no account— 
as the mere haphazard of gossip—as the sniping by 
hit-or-miss slander. 

In his newer enlightenment, he knew well enough 
that these two men, who confessed that they did not 
know him personally, were revealing what the general 
public was saying—they were phonographs playing a 
popular selection. He was not astonished by the enor- 


168 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


mity of the current abuse of him. He had had occa¬ 
sion in the past to unsnarl the skeins of slander in the 
cases of his clients. He knew the nature of the impulse 
that was operating. He could name it in the language 
of the mob: “They had got John Lang on the run!” 

“There’s a friend of mine who is a lawyer. He’s 
a chum of Larry Devon. Do you know Devon?” 
pursued the man who was opening the package of 
information. 

“No!” 

“Well, Devon is a Turk when he goes on the war¬ 
path. He’s after Lang. Lang came into his place, 
drunk, and tried to make Devon take back something 
which Devon knew was so. Lang even pulled a gun. 
But Devon stood up and said he’d go through and 
prove what he said. So, my friend tells me, Devon 
has hired a dick to chase up the Trask widow and nail 
the truth to the cross when she joins Lang. She 
doesn’t know enough to spot a detective. They’re 
letting Lang run loose, wherever it is he’s waiting for 
her. Lang would be wise to a trailer. Watch the 
newspapers. You’ll see big headlines a little later.” 

Having played that gossip selection through to the 
bitter end, the phonograph started a new popular rec¬ 
ord, raspily raking another victim of the public’s 
tongues. 

There was only one thing to do, according to Lang’s 
customary straightforward policy of face-to-face in a 
fight! He would go back to the city and pitch into 
the melee. He got out of bed and rammed his posses¬ 
sions into his duffel bag. 

He was making his pack ready that night in order to 
be able to start with the first peep o’ day. He would 
let ’em know in the city that John Lang was back with 
his sleeves rolled up! He would give them no oppor- 


AS OTHERS SEE US! 


169 


tunity to work a frame-up on him in the North woods, 
stalking him from behind that woman! 

Therefore, in the gray of the dawn he was up. He 
wakened Debois and paid the score. Lang had re¬ 
solved to walk, feeling the need of calming his mind by 
tiring his body. Dawn had smeared her first brushful 
of color along the eastern sky—a modest, subdued test 
of the rose hues of her palette. There was a tingle 
in the air. 

The birds were waking. The chickadee, a perennial 
and settled resident of the North woods, winter and 
summer, was already singing his love-song for the 
entertainment of some of the fresh avian arrivals from 
the south. His clear, sweet “dee-dee, dee-dee” echoed 
among the trees. 

A busy hairy-woodpecker was clinging to the dead 
stub of a pine, rapping with his beak to make a dozing 
grub believe that he was wanted at the door of his 
retreat on special and urgent business. The bird gave 
Lang a sociable and approving “ki-yeep,” compliment¬ 
ing another early riser on knowledge of the really best 
time to be abroad in the woods. And the hermit- 
thrush was carolling. No one has ever heard the song 
of the hermit-thrush at dawn or twilight, that flute¬ 
like, deliberately drawn-out note broken by effective 
rests, without feeling the mystic charm of the forest in 
more intense degree. 

A robin, very brisk, extremely optimistic, with breast 
painted in bright hues which had not yet been faded 
by the cares of hunting for family food, called “cheer- 
up, cheer-up!” when the thrush was not soothing the 
troubles of the world with melody. 

For a time bitterness raged in Lang as he strode over 
the mosses and trod the soft duff beneath the trees. 
After a time he realized that a very keen pang in his 


170 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


bitterness was caused by the thoughts that he must 
leave all this peace of the woods. He loathed the pros¬ 
pect ahead of him—he hated the very idea of the paved 
streets and the roar of traffic and the touch of the 
elbows of the throngs. He dreaded to go back to town 
and walk on the pavements already hatefully glossed 
by the stropping of many shoes. Indulging a sudden 
whim, he stepped off the path and went into a thicket 
and stood there, assuring himself that his feet were on 
virgin spots of Mother Earth—the exact spots where 
no other feet had been pressed. 

Not far from him a pair of golden-crested kinglets 
were starting a home. The male was genially advising 
with “tsee-tsee, ti ti ti ti!” and the female was “chip- 
pering” her complete agreement. Lang found them 
mighty companionable. He must leave such company 
and such a scene, to go back and meet those faces 
which he had been avoiding! 

He had been guessing for a long time at what was 
said behind his back. After listening to the clapper- 
tongue in the next room at Debois’s he had become 
fully aware of the infamous nature of the scandal now 
pursuing him; his dread of meeting the faces of men 
was intensified into something like a mania of resent¬ 
ment; he wondered if he would not find himself slap¬ 
ping faces on the streets, as he had slapped Devon’s 
face in the comparative privacy of the lawyers’ lounge! 

He strode on his way. The upper limb of the sun 
was quivering through the grid of the trees, like the 
stirred coals of a breakfast fire. All the birds were in 
full voice. The idea of leaving all this cleanness and 
honesty to return and fight filth in the pack of human¬ 
ity, became intolerable torture. 

There arose from his wiser reflections—listening to 
the birds, sniffing the balm of springtime among the 


AS OTHERS SEE US! 


171 


trees—the conviction that he was not yet in the proper 
mental condition to go back and fight with men. He 
had not had his promised fight out with himself. Until 
he was more sure of the honesty of his soul, he had no 
right to take on the bigger conflict! 

He remembered what his handclasp had pledged to 
Judge Anderson. 

He had been getting into a state of mind where he 
was looking at John Lang’s character squarely and 
frankly in the mirror of Nature, up there. He was 
admitting grudgingly that he was not impeccable. 
There was some sort of a sin on his conscience—and 
he was not just sure how guilty he was, or whether he 
was merely morbid. 

He came to higher ground. He could look forth and 
see the rim of the purple hills. They lay to the north 
—they invited him. He wanted to look over that rim. 
But toward the south—only flat country! He wanted 
to get beyond the rim which hemmed his honest judg¬ 
ment of himself as a man! So, after he had stood for 
a time on the height of land and had pondered, he 
drove his fists into the air in silent declaration of a 
fresh determination to be sure of himself before he 
ventured forth to force other men to make an equitable 
estimate of him as a man. 

He turned his back on the flat country which lay to 
the south. He shifted his pack to an easier position, 
like a traveler who was headed toward a distant des¬ 
tination. He swung away from the road which fol¬ 
lowed the river and he turned into a path which led 
toward the purple rim of the hills. 

The frown left his face. 

He had sandwiches in his coat pocket, food bought 
from the drowsy Debois. He trudged on and munched 
his breakfast and tossed the crumbs to the birds who 


172 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


were furnishing music along the way. The birds had 
helped to make the springtime woods coax him to stay; 
his inclination had placed fetters on him that he could 
not break just then. Therefore, he paid the birds. He 
put it in that selfish way, whimsically, in his thoughts. 
He felt better there in the candor of the woods because 
he was making an admission of selfishness at last, 
frankly and without any mental reservations. 


CHAPTER NINETEEN 
On Angel Knob 


OR a time, John Lang, tramping into the 
heart of the woods of the North, kept 
looking behind as the twisting path took 
him among the trees. It was like a man 
making sure that the doors which ensured 
his privacy were closed as he passed through. He felt 
a comfort in beholding the trees sifting together to bar¬ 
ricade the aisles in the rear, as he turned into new 
vistas. 

He did not hurry. He had decided to put the lapse 
of time out of his thoughts as nothing with which he 
was especially concerned. Time was for the city man. 
He had been a slave of the clock. He was dismissing 
the matters of the town for the peace of his soul. He 
had no particular destination except the hills—the rim 
of the hills. He shared the swagon-stew of the woods- 
folk whom he happened upon. He lingered here and 
there, o’ days, when he found new friends who per¬ 
ceived in him only the usual voyageur. He was socia¬ 
ble with them in reserved fashion. 

There were trappers, curing the winter’s spoil and 
making it ready for the auction market. There were 
gum pickers and ship knee hewers, and there were scat¬ 
tered camps of pulpwood choppers. Also there were 
men who seemed to have nothing to do except to 
exist—men who looked askance at him, this stalwart 
stranger, as if they were wondering whether at last 
somebody had come to claim them in the name of the 
173 

















174 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


law. He found lodgings for his nights with all sorts 
of men. 

He did not know whether the woods through which 
he tramped belonged to the Double T or not. He 
asked no questions. He did not care. He was keeping 
his worries about the affairs of the Trasks as much out 
of his mind as possible. 

He did not know whether this newer comfort which 
had come into his mind was peace or merely animal 
contentment in leaving to the day in hand the matters 
belonging to that day. He marched on toward the 
looming hills. 

He found a sick man sitting on a log, panting. The 
fellow had a story of trouble to relate. He said he was 
the lone fire warden in charge of the station on Bore- 
stone—he pointed to the craggy peak which over¬ 
shadowed the glen where they were. It was his duty to 
report any fires he could locate from his eyry—a post 
which commanded thousands of acres. 

A sudden tempest, shot through with lightning 
shafts, had swept across Borestone, his cabin had been 
set on fire by a crashing bolt, he was left stunned 
and scorched; his heliograph had been destroyed. He 
could not report his plight by a message to be relayed 
from station to station. Therefore, he had come stum¬ 
bling and sliding down, going for help for his hurts as 
best he could. 

“I’ve got to hurry to the Charmer Man’s,” he told 
Lang. “He can cure me!” 

The name had no significance for the lawyer at first. 

“He’s Elder Ashael of Angel Knob. It’s yonder. I 
have done my best, but I guess I can’t get there with¬ 
out help.” 

An old man in a white frock that matched his hair 
and beard—a patriarch who was serenely indifferent to 


ON ANGEL KNOB 


175 


the stares of a court room crowd—the lawyer remem¬ 
bered old Ashael. And remembering, he was reminded 
of his vague resolve to seek out the strange man of the 
woods when occasion offered an opportunity. 

Lang put out his hands and helped the stricken 
warden to his feet and supported him as they walked 
along. 

“I’m thanking God because you came to me/’ said 
the man almost whimpering. “I’ve had an awful tug 
of it alone. But I knew I’d be all right if I could only 
get to the Charmer Man! Have you heard of him?” 

“No!” Lang was hiding his identity; he trusted to 
his new beard and his rough garments to make him 
another personage than the one whom Ashael might 
remember as the counsel for the defense in the Trask 
trial. 

“Then you’re sure a new one in these parts! He 
does good to all men, without money and without 
price. That’s the wording of the writing on his door! 
There’s lots of folks who don’t believe in faith and 
good works healing the ills of the body,” chattered 
the sick man. 

He had repeated, in his own style, a phrase which 
had become familiar to him. He stumbled on, taking 
his mind off his pain by confession of his beliefs. “I 
always read my Bible every day. There’s a lot of time 
for reading and for thinking, too, up on the peak of 
old Borestone. I don’t mean to say as how Elder 
Ashael has got a monopoly on healing. Nobody has 
got a monopoly, Mister. God didn’t fix the thing that 
way when He planned. The blessing is open for all 
who know how to go and get it. 

“Once the elders of the church came and prayed 
beside the sick bed of my mother when the doctor had 
given her up—and she got well. The Bible tells all 


176 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


about how to do it with the help of the elders of the 
church. And there’s another book that tells how. I’m 
going to buy it when I can get to where they sell ’em. 
You never know what’s going to happen. There I 
was, sitting all calm, and the lightning hit me.” 

In spite of his garrulity the man was very weak. 
Lang halted, to get a firmer grip on the patient whom 
he was half carrying. What Lang was terming in his 
thoughts “ordinary horse sense” prompted him to 
suggest, “How far is it to a regular doctor, my friend?” 

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. If a regular doc¬ 
tor stood right there where that bush is I wouldn’t let 
him lay a finger on me. The only way he could get a 
look at my tongue would be when I stuck it out at 
him to say ‘Bah!’ Take me to old Ashael. That’s 
the path.” 

The trees were very clearly blazed on a trail which 
led off from the road the two men were following. 
Each blaze-mark was a cross cut into the wood through 
the bark; the mark was painted white. “You can see 
’em in the darkest night,” said the warden. “And day 
or night, it’s all the same to Ashael, where his wel¬ 
come is concerned. ‘Come to me by The Way of the 
Cross,’ he says. That’s what he calls it—‘The Way of 
the Cross’.” 

They struggled up the slope. On the poll of the hill 
there was a log camp surrounded by trim white birches. 
“There’s fifty of ’em. He calls ’em his angel band. 
But he isn’t a nut,” stated the man earnestly. 

Lang agreed with that dictum, out of his memory of 
the dignified witness who testified that he had married 
Anita Templeton to Serenus Trask. 

Ashael came from his door as the two approached 
the camp. He hastened to help Lang with his burden, 
but after a few steps the warden pushed away their 


ON ANGEL KNOB 


177 


hands. “Let me try to walk alone! I feel better just 
because I have laid my eyes on you,” he assured 
Ashael. 

But his weakness overmastered his will. He stag¬ 
gered and the old man saved him from falling. 
“Brother, there are times when faith has the wings of 
an eagle, but there are other times when faith needs 
good crutches,” he warned, and he turned on Lang a 
very sensible and understanding smile. He gave no 
indication of any remembrance of the lawyer. He 
listened to the recital of the sufferer’s tale of trouble. 

“I thought perhaps I could make myself well. So I 
stayed up there in a brush shelter. But I had to give 
in—and I have been thanking God because the woods 
are still wet and safe from fires, even though He 
couldn’t see His way to curing me.” 

“We’ll see what can be done, not presuming to ask 
God for anything except what He may grant in His 
own good time. Come in with me! ” 

Lang sat on the porch of the camp to wait and rest 
himself. He pulled out his pipe, but he put it back 
into his pocket before he lighted it. He heard the 
mumble of a voice within the camp as if an earnest 
prayer were offered up, and he had the queer feeling 
that burning tobacco might be profanation of some 
kind of a service. 

After a time Ashael came out. “The poor fellow is 
asleep,” he reported. “He needs it. His pain is not 
so bad, at any rate!” 

“Then he isn’t all well and kicking, eh?” The law¬ 
yer’s cynicism was revealed in his tone. He looked 
away from Ashael, expressing bantering surprise. A 
few moments later Lang was conscious of astonishment 
that was not of the simulated sort. The Charmer Man 
had not replied. Lang turned his head and looked into 


178 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the full blue eyes which were regarding him with a 
twinkle of undisguised humor. 

“I am only a counsel for the plaintiff, appearing 
before the Court of the Most High God, my friend. In 
your practice you are accustomed to wait patiently for 
the action of the court, aren’t you?” 

“You know who I am, do you?” 

“You are John Lang.” 

“You were in court for so short a time-” 

Ashael went on when the lawyer hesitated. “Per¬ 
haps we were mutually interested in each other, though 
the time was so short.” 

“I’ll confess to being greatly impressed by you, sir. 
This meeting is more or less by chance, but I’ll own up 
it’s very pleasing. It was in my mind to hunt you up 
some day.” 

“For what reason?” 

“I don’t know.” 

Ashael had no comment to make on that blunt reply. 

“I’ll also confess, as you realize must be the case, 
that my profession makes me curious in regard to men 
and their affairs,” pursued the lawyer. “I’d like to 
know how it is you’re here in these woods, a man of 
your apparent intelligence, doing what it is you’re 
doing, according to reports.” 

“And because I have recognized you, you would also 
like to know, I presume, what my rightful name is.” 

“I certainly would.” 

“Before you leave my camp, you’re going to ask me, 
aren’t you, to tell nobody that John Lang is in these 
parts?” pressed Ashael. 

“Yes! I am not a fugitive, you understand!” The 
lawyer twisted his mouth into a smile which had no 
humor in it. “But there are persons who want to 
hurt me; they would like to locate me!” 



ON ANGEL KNOB 


179 


“Exactly! I understand, and I agree with you as to 
the good judgment a man may use in avoiding enemies. 
I’ll keep your secret because I want to help you. And 
you’ll keep my secret—because I’m not going to tell 
you anything about myself.” 

Ashael voiced his declaration mildly. But the calm 
finality in his tone made the answer a rebuff and it 
irritated his visitor. Lang pulled out his pipe and 
lighted it and did not mind because the smoke, while 
he puffed vigorously, went trailing across the face of 
his host. There was a long silence. A tufted cater¬ 
pillar crawled along the floor of the porch. Lang 
scuffed a ruthless foot across the worm. 

“You should have allowed it to go along till it had 
preached its little sermon, sir.” 

“What do you mean?” demanded the lawyer. 

“It would have turned into a butterfly a bit later. 
In this life we have eyes which can see the winged 
creature of beauty rise from the worm; in the other life 
we have an enlightened vision which can see the soul 
separate from the corruption of the body.” 

Lang grunted. 

“You are tempted, these days, to grind all things 
under your heel, aren’t you?” 

“Why do you think that of me?” 

“You plainly showed your feelings when you angrily 
set foot upon the worm.” 

“Let it stand that way. You may be right!” 

“And yet you helped that poor fellow to my door!” 

“He helped me, too, by being my guide. I had a 
curiosity to see you again. We have all three split 
even.” He rose. “I’m going along. Good-bye!” 

“A moment, please! Have you lost your real and 
honest desire to help others in this world? Are you no 
longer ‘Generous John’?” 


180 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“Don’t call me that! I never was. I’m not now. I 
have had authoritative statements on that point from 
those who claim to know me best. I wouldn’t turn my 
hand over to help any man alive!” 

“The man in there, asleep, is on his way to be 
healed. But I am worried about you, sir.” 

“You needn’t be. I’m feeling quite healthy.” 

“You are very ill, my brother.” 

“Do you propose to offer your services?” 

“You are sick with a trouble which you yourself 
must heal. By putting aside your own will and giving 
honest help to humankind you could win back to 
health. Make real friends and help them unselfishly.” 

“I have no real friends,” insisted Lang, stubborn in 
his revolt against all mankind. 

But all at once he turned from the recluse and 
showed acute and friendly appreciation of a thrush’s 
lilting song. 

“Hold on! I spoke too quickly, Mister Ashael! 
There’s one of my friends—that thrush! The other 
morning I shared my breakfast with some of the bird’s 
relatives.” Lang gave the old man a whimsical smile. 
“It was my thank-offering! The birds coaxed me to 
stay on longer in the woods—and I’m glad because I 
stayed.” 

“Ah! Good! You confess yourself a brother of the 
birds, at least,” commended Ashael. “You are in a sad 
state in respect to your brotherhood with man, how¬ 
ever. You must begin at the foot of the ladder of 
love and work your way up. Why not be humble to 
that extent, friend, and be no more at the first than 
a brother of the birds? But more of a practical 
brother! I can think of a way.” 

“I don’t follow you!” 

When Ashael talked further Lang was more per- 


ON ANGEL KNOB 


181 


plexed; the topic seemed to have nothing to do with 
what the old man had been talking about a few mo¬ 
ments before. 

“If you know anything about the woods, sir, you 
understand that May is a dangerous season. The dried 
slash of the winter choppings is everywhere. The 
Spring hurries as fast as she can to offset the careless¬ 
ness of man. She places her fire-breaks. She coaxes up 
the patches of the box-berry greens and puts leaves on 
the witch hobble and the moose wood. But the work 
takes time, the best she can do! Then a fool with a 
pipe or a campfire lights the fuse of the bomb! Away 
the conflagration goes! And in your present mood in 
regard to men—and women, too, maybe—I don’t sup¬ 
pose you would care how many acres of the Widow 
Trask’s lands are burned, or how much the barons of 
the Great Northern lose in the way of pulp-timber or 
whether the fat and homely heiress of Jonas Blake is 
obliged to buy a husband on the cut-price bargain 
counter because of her loss in standing timber! You 
don’t care, eh?” 

“No, I don’t care,” returned Lang sourly. But he 
was looking with new interest at Ashael, wondering 
what the old man was driving at and impressed by the 
hermit’s shrewd knowledge of the news and conditions 
in the North country. 

“Perhaps not, for you’d know that the Widow Trask 
and the others would not lose all. But there are many 
—there are thousands who would lose everything— 
homes and their lives. No, no! Don’t say again that 
you don’t care. I’m not talking about human beings. 
I’m talking about the birds, your brothers.” 

He returned Lang’s unfriendly stare with compo¬ 
sure. “I’m talking of only humble friends, but I am 
not jesting with you, sir. I have told you how you 


182 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


must start at the foot of the ladder of love in order 
to make yourself well again. Fm merely giving you 
a prescription—you must fill it and take it of your own 
volition. All these thousands of acres in this immedi¬ 
ate region are left unguarded by a fire warden until 
that poor chap in there can go back to Borestone or 
can get word to another warden. If you would take 
his place on the mountain for a time, you could keep 
watch and report the little fires and summon help 
before the little fires could grow to conflagrations.” 

Lang thought upon the matter, immediately inter¬ 
ested in spite of the rather fantastic reason the old 
man had put forward as a call to the service. 

“You think, Elder Ashael, it would be a mighty 
good thing for me to go up on that mountain and look 
out over the world and do some hard thinking in 
regard to myself. That’s your idea, isn’t it?” 

“I compliment your astuteness, my friend! ” 

“The man told me that his house was burned.” 

“He spoke, however, of a brush shelter. You have 
boasted of your health of body. You’ll feel the heart¬ 
beat of Mother World if you lie on the ground. I have 
tried it. You’ll see farther into the heart of the 
heavens if you’ll stay out from under a wooden roof 
for a time.” 

“He said his heliograph had been destroyed.” 

“I have one here in my camp. I have used it to send 
messages of good cheer to the lonely chaps on the 
mountain tops. I will lend it to you.” 

“I’ll say this,” admitted Lang frankly. “You’re a 
good operator—getting at me as you have done. Your 
name, ‘Charmer Man,’ fits you. I see what you hope is 
going to happen in my case. But I’m distinctly telling 
you that when I take this job, I’m doing it only for the 
sake of the birds. Let that be understood between us.” 


ON ANGEL KNOB 183 

“It was my own suggestion, friend. I’m not going 
back on it!” 

Ashael went into his camp. When he came out, 
bringing the heliograph, he said, “The poor chap is 
awake. He tells me he managed to save his supplies 
in the lean-to. They are cached near the brush shelter. 
Do you understand how to operate this instrument?” 

“We learned all those things at Plattsburg,” 
snapped Lang. He picked up his pack, adjusted it 
and started away, the instrument under his arm. 

“Your trail to the mountain is plain,” called 
Ashael. 

“Thank you.” 

“If you feel like flashing me a morning hello when 
the sun is bright, or winking a sunset word or two to 
say that all is right up there, I’ll be glad.” 

“I’ll probably have nothing to say.” 

Lang was feeling irritation which he did not under¬ 
stand very well. He was in the mood of one who had 
had something put over on him. The pretext of the 
service for the birds was a very thin veneer for Ashael’s 
success in being rather informally a physician of the 
soul. Lang was not then humbled to the extent of 
admitting to himself that an old hermit, up in the 
woods, could do anything sensible in the way of real 
help. 

The lawyer preferred to keep on clinging to his bit¬ 
ter grudge against all men. He took that grudge up 
the mountain with him. He wanted to stay on the 
mountain for a time in order to avoid the whole pes¬ 
tiferous pack of humanity, he told himself. 

It was a tough climb, and it took up his full atten¬ 
tion when he came to the ledgy cliffs. In places there 
were sapling hand-rails to help him up the V-shaped 
gutters of the rocks. There were cliffs so steep that 


184 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


ascent was possible only by using some rude ladders, 
clamped to the ledges. He came across several lethar¬ 
gic spotted adders sunning themselves on the warm 
rocks. He was glad to note all the difficulties and de¬ 
terrents of the ascent. They assured him his privacy. 

That night, from the peak of Borestone, he watched 
the sunset die and saw the flashing waters of the wind¬ 
swept lakes fade in the obscurity of the twilight. 

When the stars came out he slept peacefully on a 
bed of spruce boughs under the brushwood roof. 


CHAPTER TWENTY 



streams. 


Though the King Was Dead, the Queen Lived 

HE headquarters camp of the Double T was 
on the Hagas waters, a lake whose inlets 
and outlets made it look like a great octo¬ 
pus sprawling in the forest. The camp 
was the center of a web of tote-roads and 
There were numerous buildings—horse 
hovels, cook and bunk houses, wangan or store camps, 
shelters for machinery—for the log-haulers and the 
tools for the operations. 

On a hill crowned with towering spruces was a big, 
eight-sided house of logs, a sort of a fortress in the 
forest, the home and office camp from which Serenus 
Skidmore Trask had administered his affairs through 
all the years. 

There was a new tyrant on the throne in the octa¬ 
gon house. Anita Trask sat in the big chair at the 
broad table, and the various operating bosses of the 
Double T came to her and reported and received their 
orders and went away. Some of them, visiting head¬ 
quarters for the first time after she took charge, had 
swaggered a bit before they went in—had cocked 
their heads and had had something to say in asides 
about taking orders from a girl, even though she did 
own the Double T. They were prepared to be conde¬ 
scending, out of their knowledge of the practical side 
of lumbering. 

They came out from her presence, blinking with the 
uncertainty of those who were not just certain of 
185 









186 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


themselves and were considerably humbled. They had 
come up against a mistress who fixed their attention 
firmly with her round, unwavering eyes and who let 
it be known that she was of the woods, the same as 
they were. She said she did not understand the 
minuter details of the lumber business and should not 
interfere with any man who was producing results. 
But she was just as frank in informing her subalterns 
that she should keep an eye on them by the employ¬ 
ment of walking bosses who knew their business and 
who would report to her regularly. 

When one man ventured to remonstrate, saying he 
did not need any “spy” to keep him straight, she imme¬ 
diately told the man that he was through with the 
Double T. There was another boss in the office at the 
time and after the crestfallen objector had gone away 
she ordered the boss to pass the word that her agents 
were not to be called spies. 

A hardness showed under the mask of her beauty. 
Her manner had the bold, calculating self-reliance 
which even young and pretty women display after 
they have been obliged to deal on defensive terms 
with men and have become disillusionized. 

One of the men who visited her on business informed 
himself (though he was very careful about telling 
anybody else after learning how quick she was on the 
trigger in the matter of discharging men) that unless 
something very serious was the trouble with his eye¬ 
sight he had seen that same girl across the Border at 
Portage Lewrie, helping a black-moustached chap to 
run a raffle game at a carnival. 

The new head of the Double T had dispensed with 
skirts in the woods. She wore riding breeches. She 
showed no feminine self-consciousness when she strode 
about the camps on Hagas waters. The bosses had 


THOUGH THE KING WAS DEAD 187 


always a fresh story to tell about her domineering 
methods with men; therefore, her hirelings settled into 
a mood and mien of deference. 

John Lang, with more subtle analysis of her nature 
than the woodsman could compass, had recognized in 
her the avatar of that compelling quality which had 
raised Jane Shores and Du Barrys from the ditch to 
despotism, all through the ages. But the story told 
often by the head cook of the Double T camps revealed 
even a stranger quality in her. The cook described 
the affair with considerable awe. 

She one day, soon after coming to the castle, espied 
cats clustered about the funnel of the cook house 
where it emerged through the roof; the animals were 
gathered there to warm themselves in the nip of the 
May evening; May has its night chill in the North 
woods. 

The cook warned her against being sociable with 
those cats. He explained that all domestic cats grow 
wild after they have been in the woods for a time. 
He said they would come to no one of their own 
accord; if a person tried to pick one up, the person 
would be clawed into ribbons. 

“But she looked up at them cats,” said the cook, 
“and she twittered a funny call and after a few min¬ 
utes, down they came a-straggling; and they humped 
up their backs and leaned against her legs, and purred 
and meowed all sociable and free. And she picked up 
the two toughest old toms and marched off to her camp 
with one under each arm. And any day you step into 
the office you’ll see ’em setting on the table, admiring 
her, but always ready to gouge a whole clawful of meat 
out of any hand but hers if they can reach that hand. 
This world is full of mysteries, and that’s one of ’em.” 

The cook was re-telling the story, informing a new 


188 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


man in camp. It was the rosy time o’ day just before 
the twilight began to deepen. 

“And to prove it, there she comes and there are the 
cats!” 

Anita was walking down slowly from the octagon 
camp. In the hook of each arm she carried a cat. 
The animals were big and black and in their sooty 
faces their green eyes showed lustrously large. 

At the edge of the fringe of woods, the stump of a 
great pine had been sawed level and fitted with a 
back and chair arms; Serenus Trask had used it for 
his outdoor throne when the weather invited. His 
widow took a seat there, holding the cats on her 
knees. They seemed to be expecting something in the 
way of diversion. Their tails were jerking and their 
whiskers twitched. 

The cook swore under his breath. “It seems to be 
her notion of a good way to settle her dinner—but I’ll 
be damned if I like it—seeing it every evening!” 

A few rabbits, venturing in single file, came hopping 
from the undergrowth, emboldened by the twilight to 
seek the fresh herbage of the clearing. Anita loosed 
the black cats. They leaped lithely and silently and 
each pounced on a fleeing rabbit. They showed 
sagacity and the advantage of practice. Setting strong 
jaws, they broke the backs of their victims so that the 
rabbits were deprived of the only defense which those 
timid beasts possess—their sturdy hind legs. But the 
cats did not slay the rabbits at once. They cuffed 
the animals about the sward. A terror-stricken rabbit 
wails as piteously as an infant in pain. The awful 
cries continued after the cats had dragged the wounded 
animals under a camp’s porch. Anita was laughing 
aloud. At a little distance from her a man stopped, 
awaiting audience. He was one of the field agents. 


THOUGH THE KING WAS DEAD 189 


“Why are you scowling like that?” she demanded 
sharply. “Don’t you enjoy good sport?” 

“Yes—oh, yes!” he said, obsequiously apologizing 
by tone and manner. “But I hate to hear ’em take 
on so bad!” 

“In the woods you must go by the laws of the woods. 
The big trees crowd out the smaller ones, the big 
animals eat the little ones. It’s the same outside 
the woods among men and women, only they gloss 
over their doings. Why lie about it? It’s all the same 
thing. We’re more honest about what we do here in 
the woods.” She caught herself up and apologized 
aloud to her sense of reserve, showing no regard for 
the man’s feelings. “You mustn’t think I’m getting 
confidential with an understrapper. I was only saying 
things to myself. What’s the business?” 

“We have located that Lawyer Lang according to 
your orders, madam.” 

She was jarred out of the pose of autocratic dignity 
she had assumed since she had come into the woods 
of the Double T. She leaped from her stump-throne. 
“Where is he?” 

“On the top of Borestone!” 

“Did you go there? Did you find him there?” 

“No, madam! But a message was helioed from the 
station on top of Borestone to the station on Spencer. 
Spencer phoned to Castonia settlement that it was a 
telegram to the city—a telegram to a Judge Anderson 
to have him tell Onesime Oullette—the Canuck they’re 
holding for the Templeton murder—not to worry but 
to keep waiting all patient and he would get free.” 

He misinterpreted the expression which made even 
her handsome face ugly at that moment. 

He hastened to add, “The helio didn’t say who was 
sending the message, I’ll admit. But I’ve got friends 


190 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


to give me tips as to messages in this section and I 
reckon you’re paying me to use my brains and put two 
and two together. The papers all reported that Mr. 
Lang had taken the Ouellette case to defend—and 
who else but Mr. Lang would be sending that word 
from Borestone?” 

She was now in command of herself. “This Lawyer 
Lang would do better to send a message to me, explain¬ 
ing why he ran away and left my husband’s legal 
affairs to take care of themselves.” 

“We all understand how you feel about him, after 
what you have told us, if you’ll allow me to say as 
much, madam! He’s only wasting his time on that 
Frenchman—and I don’t care how good a lawyer Mr. 
Lang is.” 

“I don’t care to hear the case mentioned, sir. And 
the only interest I have in Lang is to find him and 
oblige him to attend to his duties. I must go to the 
top of Borestone, wherever it is.” 

“It’s an awful climb, madam!” 

“I’m not afraid of mountains or of men, when the 
business of the Double T is to be attended to, sir. I 
hope that’s well understood. I will start at daybreak 
with you as a guide. Have the horses ready.” 

He flourished an obedient hand and bowed and 
walked away. 

She called to the black cats and they came from 
under the porch, licking blood from their lips, and 
followed her up the slope to the octagon camp. She 
hurried in and closed the door behind her and leaned 
against it, jealous of her privacy. She was trembling; 
her face was flushed; her red lips were apart. “John! 
John!” she whispered over and over, caressing the 
name with soft fervor. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE 

On the Matter of Thieves 

HE mistress of the barony of the Double 
T rode across her lands in the glory of 
the May sunshine. The single squire 
whom she had appointed to be her guide 
followed at a respectful distance. The 
two were on horseback. They had not made their 
start in the early dawn, according to Anita’s com¬ 
mands of the evening before; the squire had brought 
the horses to the octagon camp before sunrise but 
he was obliged to wait for a long time. 

Finally he ventured to ask a woman, who appeared 
and set about her work of tidying the screened porch, 
if she would tell her mistress that he was waiting. 

“She knows you’re here. She has been getting ready 
for an hour!” 

Then, making a pretense of being very busy with 
her dust-cloth on the frame of the screen, the domestic 
inquired in tones apprehensively low, “Where is she 
going?” 

The squire was cautious, on his own part. “If she 
hasn’t told you, it isn’t for me to say anything.” 

“I can’t help wondering,” pursued the woman. 
“She’s primping as if she had a fashion party on her 
mind.” 

The squire, trailing behind later, had plenty of 
opportunity to study the attire of the lady of the 
Double T as they rode along. He had accompanied 
her before on tours of inspection when the suggestion 
that she was the lady of the demesne, instead of merely 
191 












192 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


his boss, was not so pronounced as it was this day. She 
rode astride, to be sure, but she wore divided skirts of 
rich, green fabric; the squire decided that it must be 
velvet. Her hat was green of the same material as 
the habit, and the hat had a broad brim; a drooping 
white plume hung as far as her shoulder. The feather 
was a bit archaic, like the rest of the garb, according 
to modern fashions, but it was peculiarly effective in 
her case. 

According to the man’s humble opinion her rig 
was a most extraordinary one for mountain climbing— 
and he had warned her of the climb as a particularly 
tough one. She had probably given up that idea, he 
told himself. 

She turned in her saddle to speak to him. He was 
a matter-of-fact individual, bronzed and bearded, and 
was not subject to especially vivid emotions. But the 
beauty of that glowing face under the green brim of 
the hat sent a thrill through him. It did not seem like 
anything real—a girl of that sort, thus attired, in the 
woods—he told himself. 

“Dawson, how far is it to Borestone?” 

“A matter of ten woods miles, madam.” 

“And after we leave the horses it’s not an easy climb, 
you say?” 

“Only for squirrels, ma’am!” 

She did not appear to be at all discomposed by the 
information. For a considerable distance they fol¬ 
lowed one of the main tote-roads and she put her 
horse into a canter. When they came to any sort of 
an elevation affording a view of the stretch of forest, 
she stopped and asked if what they beheld was her 
land. Every time, when he assured her again that they 
could not as yet see beyond the boundaries of her 
territory, she raised her chin proudly. 


ON THE MATTER OF THIEVES 193 


“And one can look for a long distance from the top 
of Borestone, I suppose ?” 

“For miles and miles, madam!” 

“And much of what one can see from up there is 
still my land, eh?” 

“Most of it! Borestone is yours, though a hunk 
of rock like that isn’t worth anything.” 

She flashed a rebuking glance which conveyed dis¬ 
agreement with his opinion. He did not understand 
the nature of this new pride of possession—this glory¬ 
ing in what was her own. She seemed to have an 
especial reason for demanding to be told that all 
these acres were hers, to do with as she wished. 

When they were well along on their way they arrived 
at a main depot camp. She dismounted and inspected 
the stores in the various buildings. The keeper of 
the camp escorted her and explained. Many cats 
trailed him. He said he treated them well because 
they kept the mice from the stores. 

“And I wish I had cats big enough to keep away 
other kinds of critters than mice,” he confided with 
surly emphasis. He was a man who had been affected 
by the isolation of his lonely job and had become 
misanthropic and inclined to make much of small 
matters. “Those critters I’m speaking of are what’s 
knocking the profits off the Double T operations for 
you, ma’am.” 

She turned on him, her eyes blazing. “If anything 
is taking profits from the Double T, my man, I should 
have been told. I have my own reasons for wanting 
profits to be very large from now on.” 

The two men perceived only a mercenary spirit. 

On her ride through her possessions she had been 
meditating deeply. She had her own estimate of the 
nature of man—an estimate which had been pounded 


194 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


into hard conviction on the anvil of experience after 
having been put through the fires of her trials. 

Now she was on her way to test covetousness. 

There was a man on the top of Borestone—and he 
was only a man she told herself, even though he had 
shown toward her a reserve such as no other man had 
ever displayed when she invited. He had resisted her. 
But would he resist the offering she now was going to 
lay at his feet? She was going up to that god on the 
mountain with a votive gift. 

She had met many men who professed not to be 
covetous, but she had powers of persuasion such as 
most women did not have, and she had made them 
strip their souls and confess that even crime was not 
too high a price for them to pay for what they were 
determined to possess. Her views had been narrowed 
by her experiences. She had never met the sort of 
men who could broaden those views. Even John 
Lang had his price! She knew it—she was going with 
it in her hand. But here was a lackey who was telling 
her that her possessions were in a way to be dim¬ 
inished. 

“It’s this way!” he said when she angrily demanded 
facts. “We have a lot of small depots—scattered 
camps—where it ain’t good sense to pay for special 
guards. And the squatters come and steal from those 
camps.” 

“Put on guards—with guns!” she commanded. 

“I beg your pardon, ma’am,” ventured Dawson. 
“But Mr. Trask didn’t think it was worth while. He 
reckoned on a certain amount of stealing. Paying men 
to guard small stocks would come to more than what 
the stealing amounts to—twice over. Jim, here, has 
grown to be sort of cracked on the subject. I have 
talked with him before. The trouble is, he doesn’t 


ON THE MATTER OF THIEVES 195 


have enough to think about, and dwells too much on 
one thing.” 

“I’m for the interests of the Double T,” insisted the 
keeper. 

“I don’t care if it’s only pennyworths they’re steal¬ 
ing,” declared the mistress sharply. “I’ll have it 
stopped. I must have all my money. Get guns! 
Shoot!” 

“Kill ’em?” queried the keeper, squinting his eyes 
evilly and showing satisfaction. 

“Yes!” 

“You’re the kind after my own heart, ma’am! 
You’re a boss to be proud of. Will you back me up 
in all I do?” 

“I will.” 

“I’d like to have you feel a little proud of me , 
humble though I am, ma’am. So I’m going to tell you 
how I have done something to one gang, and it’s 
fixing ’em without spending money on guards and 
guns. I dosed a fifty-pound box of bulk cooking 
soda with arsenic and let ’em steal it.” 

“You devilish son of a bobcat, that’s murder!” 
exploded the indignant Dawson. 

“Did it kill them?” inquired Anita, unperturbed. 

The keeper cackled laughter. He was emboldened 
by this approving mistress. “I didn’t go out to kill 
’em! I’m a slicker operator than that! I made the 
dose middling light—enough to make ’em sick and 
keep ’em growing sicker—and they don’t know yet 
what’s the matter. It’s the rat-poison idea—don’t 
let ’em die in the house! They’ll move away because 
they’ll come to think the locality isn’t healthy—or 
else they’ll get awful sick and then the State pauper 
overseers will come and get ’em. Same thing—good 
riddance! I’ll keep on and drive out all the thieves 


196 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


who are taking away profits from the Double T.” 

“This is going to make a lot of trouble if it isn’t 
stopped, Mrs. Trask,” declared Dawson. 

“For whom? For me? For the Double T? Daw¬ 
son, the thief is the only guilty party. We are not 
responsible if he is hurt by what he steals. My man, 
you are not telling this to anybody else, are you?” 
she asked the keeper. 

“Only to you, ma’am!” 

“And to Dawson,” she added crisply, and said with 
meaning, “therefore, it’s a matter that will not be 
talked about.” She went out of the camp and mounted 
her horse. 

“What are we paying you?” she asked the depot 
guard who stood in the door, smirking at her. 

“Thirty-five a month—and my keep, of course!” 

“I’ll tell the pay clerk to make it fifty from now on.” 

“Ma’am, I’ll promise you results. If you’re so 
minded, and want to see how a good plan is working, 
you might swing around by the way of the Pugwash 
road and that takes you through the settlement I’m 
speaking of. But I’m advising you against sampling 
any hot biscuits! ” 

“Dawson, show me how to go by way of the Pug¬ 
wash road,” she commanded. As she started away, 
the keeper had another bit of information for her. 

“Old Ashael of Angel Knob is trying his hand on 
’em, so I hear, making regular trips. But I guess he’s 
beginning to figure as how the devil is beating him to 
it.” 

Her countenance did not reveal that any news about 
Elder Ashael interested her though he had joined her 
in marriage to Trask from whose bounty she had 
received the lands of which she was so proud. 

She had nothing more to say to Dawson as the two 


ON THE MATTER OF THIEVES 197 


rode on. He had been keeping at a respectful distance 
behind her; now he was even more a laggard, as if he 
were avoiding anything like companionship. 

The settlement to which they came was a straggling 
hamlet of shacks and small log huts. It was one of 
those squatter neighborhoods so familiar in the woods 
of the North, a community of consanguinity where 
interbreeding had had its results. It was a family, 
rather than a village. The keeper who had dosed the 
soda with arsenic understood well how the loot would 
be used as a common supply as long as it lasted. 

Most of the men, women and children who were 
in sight were sitting stolidly in the sunlight as if they 
were hoping that the rays might give them back their 
health and strength. They were pathetic spectacles— 
so shrunken, wasted and cadaverous that they were 
fairly hideous. They looked at the radiant woman who 
rode past, but there was no particular expression in 
their sunken eyes. 

Slow poisoning by arsenic is attended by certain 
characteristic results. The flesh melts away. The 
muscles become atrophied. Here was a community 
of living skeletons. 

The mistress of the Double T pulled her horse to 
a slow walk and scrutinized the exhibits which had 
been commended to her attention by the man in the 
depot camp. She displayed a great deal of interest 
but very little concern. 

Dawson averted his gaze from them; he looked sick. 

“Do I own this land?” Anita asked him. 

“Yes, madam. These folks are only squatters.” 

She stopped her horse opposite one log house where 
several persons were collected just outside the door. 
“I own this land,” she informed them. “This is not 
a good place for you to live. I ask you to move away.” 


198 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


They showed no sign of interest; they made no reply. 

“Wake up, you fellows!” she cried sharply. “Why 
doesn’t one of you speak to me—answer me?” 

“I reckon they’re too near dead to do much talking, 
madam,” Dawson suggested, putting into his tone as 
much rebuke of the new punitive tactics as he dared. 
“They don’t pay any attention to orders to move away. 
I’ve heard your husband tongue-lash ’em in good shape 
—and be sure he could handle his tongue! But they 
wouldn’t move even for him.” 

She showed some incredulity when she received this 
information. 

“That’s right!” insisted Dawson. “There’s some 
kind of a law about squatters. Driving ’em off is more 
expensive than letting ’em stay.” 

“But I —I propose to drive them off!” She raised 
her riding crop. “I own the Double T. I order you 
—all of you—to get off my lands. I don’t want to 
have my lands cluttered up with such buildings. When 
I bring people to look at my property I want them to 
see how well the Double T is managed.” 

Dawson wondered, finding it a bit strange because 
she was taking those pitiable nondescripts into her 
confidence even to that extent. If he could have 
understood better he would have known that Anita 
was bearing a gift to a man on a mountain top and was 
passionately desirous of having that gift without 
blemish; it was going to the extreme of meticulous 
mania in a certain matter, but she was in the mood to 
go to extremes. She railed at the squatters; her voice 
was shrill. 

Elder Ashael came slowly from the door of the log 
house. He was very grave, and he raised his hand 
in protest. “There’s death within-doors, here, Widow 
Trask!” The rebuke did not calm her; the emphasis 


ON THE MATTER OF THIEVES 199 


he had put on the title which he applied to her roused 
her ire like a taunt, for just then she was exulting in 
her youth, her beauty and her power. 

“Do you have any influence over these wretches who 
are trespassing on my lands?” 

“I have been trying to influence them.” 

“Have you ever told them that it is wrong to steal 
my land?” 

“I have told them it is wrong to steal anything. I 
have tried to show them the way toward the truth and 
the right. I have told them they would certainly be 
punished for doing wrong things.” 

Men, women and children rose and dragged them¬ 
selves nearer the scene of the colloquy. They were 
not surveying Ashael with any sort of amity. They 
had not relished his past arraignment of them for 
doing wrong. Some of the men were muttering in 
surly fashion. One raised his voice. 

“You, Charmer Man, you’ve always been saying as 
how God ain’t willing to let us do something for our¬ 
selves against them as is trying to grind us down; and 
now here comes another one who says the Double T 
won’t even let us have a quillpig’s chance in these 
woods! But you don’t herd quillpigs and drive ’em 
off, even if they do girdle the trees! ” 

This thinly-veiled rebelliousness angered Anita still 
more; she even included in her hostility the man who 
had wedded her to Serenus Trask. She was not grate¬ 
ful for having had such odious fetters placed on her, 
even though a quick release from them had brought 
to her this power which she was wielding. 

“If you have any influence at all in this settlement, 
sir, I’m going to ask you to use it and get these people 
away. If they will go quietly, I’ll send horses to 
cart them and their belongings to some other locality, 


200 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


off my lands. If they don’t agree to go, I’ll send men 
here with dynamite to blow these shacks up and make 
these persons shift for themselves. That’s final!” 

She whirled her horse with intent to go on, but 
Ashael put his hand on the reins. “You are young 
and impetuous, Widow Trask, and are new to your 
task and its responsibilities. Therefore, I will tell you 
something for your guidance.” 

“I don’t care for your advice, sir!” 

He preserved his mildness; he kept his hand on the 
reins. “It isn’t merely advice. It’s the law. One 
should be warned against breaking the law.” He gave 
her keen and shrewd scrutiny. “If you were in closer 
touch with the attorney for the Trask estate at this 
time I would not be called on to give you the law. 
These persons in this settlement are, to a certain 
extent, State paupers. You have no right to use force 
and set them and their belongings down on the lands 
of somebody else. You’ll be liable under the pauper 
laws.” 

She did not try to urge her horse away from him; 
his reference to John Lang had had a quieting effect on 
her. 

“You haven’t the right, even, without due process of 
law, to evict them from your lands. Your husband 
knew better. He did not care to go to the expense. 
This poor chap’s reference to the porcupines is en¬ 
lightening on that point—it costs money to extermi¬ 
nate wild animals. 

“The State law protects squatters who have been 
on lands long enough to make what are called ‘im¬ 
provements.’ The settlers cannot be thrown off unless 
those improvements are paid for by the actual owner 
of the land.” 

“Do you call this an ‘improvement’?” she asked 


ON THE MATTER OF THIEVES 201 

scornfully, with a sweep of her crop to indicate the 
scene. 

“In the eyes of the law, yes! Even the scratching 
of the soil around yonder stumps, where they have put 
in their poor crops, that’s a legal improvement of 
the land. You must respect the rights of these people, 
Widow Trask.” 

She looked as if she would like to lash him across 
his face because of his insistence on that title. “And 
this is the kind of influence you’re using on these 
squatters, is it—influencing them to oppose me?” 

“I am determined to render unto Caesar all things 
due to Caesar. But I am just as determined to have 
these folks hold to the rights which the law gives 
them.” 

“Do you live on my lands?” 

“I do.” 

“A squatter?” 

“I am in exactly the same position as these settlers 
—and all the settlers in this region are suffering from 
the wicked injustice of things as they stand!” He 
showed a flash of righteous anger. 

She welcomed his indignation as if it gave her an 
opportunity to indulge in her own resentment which 
had been dulled momentarily by his mildness of tone 
and demeanor. “How do you dare say it is unjust 
for me to keep my own for myself?” 

“I offered Serenus Trask money—I begged him over 
and over again to take his pay for the little acre on 
which I live. He would not sell to me. He would not 
sell land in these woods to anybody else. None of 
the timber barons will sell. They will not allow a 
squatter to buy his honest rights.” 

“And for a blamed good reason!” volunteered Daw¬ 
son. “Our crop is timber, and we don’t reckon to have 


202 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


it in danger all the time from the fires of these devilish, 
lazy fools who’d rather clear a tract by burning the 
trees than by using enough elbow-grease to chop ’em.” 

“And if you are encouraging such business you are 
not a safe man to be allowed on my lands,” declared 
Anita hotly. “You say you are in the same class with 
these others! You seem to glory in it! I order you 
to leave, too—and if you’ll lead away your friends, it 
will be better for the whole of you.” 

She struck her horse and the animal leaped forward, 
crowding past Ashael. 

When they were well on their way Dawson spoke. 
“If you’ll allow me-” then he hesitated. 

“You talked good sense a little while ago. Go on! 
I hope you’re going to talk more sense!” 

“I’m not standing up for those squatters, madam! 
But I’m advising you to go slow and sure.” 

“I’m going to drive them off my lands.” 

“They’re a dangerous bunch, right now. They have 
always been ugly. Now they’re worse than ever on 
account of what’s happening to make ’em sick. Your 
husband never took chances with ’em.” 

“Don’t refer to my husband! He’s dead! I’m 
alive!” 

“Those people can be stirred up to make trouble for 
most anybody without specially caring who the party 
is, madam!” 

“That statement gives me an idea! I thank you, 
Dawson!” 

“But they’re always threatening to start a fire in 
these woods—a blaze that’ll make hell seem like a re¬ 
frigerator in comparison. I beg pardon for the lan¬ 
guage, madam, but that’s the idea!” 

“I’ll make sure they start no fires on my lands, sir! 
I can handle rabble such as they are, if they’re not led 


ON THE MATTER OF THIEVES 203 


by a troublemaker. But when a man stands up in front 
of me, on my own lands, and defies me and encourages 
a lot of ignoramuses to stand out against my orders, 
I’ll attend to his case, and I don’t care how white his 
whiskers are,” she declared roughly, with venom. 
“When I start to fight for my own, Dawson, and for 
what I claim is my own—” she paused and turned in 
her saddle and surveyed him, narrowing her eyes. 

“I just thanked you for an idea, Dawson! I’m 
thanking you again for some handy words! When 
I’m fighting for what I want, I can make hell seem like 
a refrigerator!” 

The woodsman was accustomed to vigorous man- 
talk in the forest, but this sentiment, issuing from 
between those red lips, rasped his nerves. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO 
The Apparition on Borestone 



HEN Anita and her squire arrived at a 
place on the Borestone trail where the up¬ 
ward tilt of the ledges was too steep for 
the horses, she dismounted. Dawson had 
been wholly cowed by what he had dis¬ 
covered in her nature. He was chary about making 
more suggestions. But he did offer to climb the moun¬ 
tain alone in order to induce Lawyer Lang to come 
down. He ventured to suggest that any gentleman 
would undoubtedly be offended if a lady were allowed 
to put herself to all the trouble of climbing up there 
for an interview. 

Anita made no reply but proceeded to gather the 
skirts of her habit about her knees by means of tapes. 

“And your rig isn’t fit for such a climb, madam! I 
told you last evening-” 

She turned angry eyes on him from under the brim 
of her hat. “You told me, a moment ago, Dawson, that 
the trail is straight up and can’t be missed! That’s 
enough. You told me all you can tell me. Now I’ll 
tell you something! You stay here with the horses!” 
His jaw sagged. He had not reckoned on her inten¬ 
tion to go alone. “Don’t you leave here to come up 
on this mountain, no matter how long I am gone. 
Don’t allow yourself to get into a foolish state of mind 
because you think I may have fallen or am in trouble. 
You stay here! Do you understand?” 

“Yes, madam!” 

She turned away and began the ascent, leaning for- 












THE APPARITION ON BORESTONE 205 


ward, pulling herself up by the bushes and saplings, 
moving swiftly and surely. A moment later he got 
one of the starts of his life! She picked up something 
from the sun-warmed face of the cliff, turned quickly 
and flung it down at him. 

It was a big writhing snake, and the missile narrowly 
missed his head when he ducked. It was only a harm¬ 
less serpent, he knew—a reptile with dirty brown spots 
and known as a milk-adder. But he turned up at 
the girl a face suddenly pale under the tan. 

“There’s a playmate for you, Dawson, so you won’t 
be lonesome when I’m gone!” 

After she had disappeared among the ledges, he sat 
down and filled his pipe and smoked composedly. He 
was not worrying any longer—he had no fear about 
that kind of a girl! She was truly able to take care 
of herself! 

* * * * 

The volunteer fire-warden of Borestone was not 
thoroughly attuned to his surroundings this day. His 
tenure of office was in the way of being terminated. 

For many days he had been conscious of a growing 
content with things, as they were. His conscience was 
less troublesome. The sense of the waiting duties did 
not weigh on him so heavily. The bonds which linked 
him to the world of men were less oppressive and he 
did not bother to wonder just what the nature of this 
new indifference was. 

He did not reproach himself for allowing his general 
regrets to be wrapped in torpor. The regret which was 
now acutely awake had been aroused by the knowl¬ 
edge that the warden would soon get back to the job. 
Then Lang would be deprived of this excuse of service. 
The feeling that he ought not to leave Borestone until 
the man was well again had been comforting him. 


206 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


There was a real duty on the mountain top in those 
days of danger; the May tinder had not been deluged. 

The substitute warden sat on the gray moss and 
looked out over the mighty stretch of lakes and forest. 

It was a peculiarly delicious sort of a day. May 
often borrows the framework of such a day from 
her sister June, just to try an experiment, and trims 
that framework to suit the whim of the earlier season. 
That is to say, the languorous warmth is there and the 
sun is brilliant in the sky. But the trimmings veil the 
horizon in pale and misty drapings, and the sunlight, 
when it reaches the landscape, is like dusted gold- 
flakes. 

And on account of the wondrous quality of this day, 
Lang was sorry because the warden was coming to 
dispossess the substitute. Lang had been a more or 
less regular visitor to the camp of Ashael. 

The trail had become familiar, and was easy for him 
even when he had only the moon to light his way up 
the mountain. After his long, sunlit hours as a senti¬ 
nel, he welcomed the exertion which the trip to Ash- 
ael’s house demanded. 

He and the old man would converse on the porch in 
the twilight. Ashael did not preach. But he had a 
subtle way of probing, and after he had touched the 
sensitive spot, he allowed Lang to go away and nurse 
the hurt with his own means of alleviation. 

The attorney, unable to rid himself of his habit of 
questioning a witness, had made attempts to probe on 
his own account! It was no longer mere curiosity; 
he was aware that the old man’s honest sincerity had 
dulled the point of what at first was a lawyer’s cynical 
inquisitiveness. Lang wanted to know the man better 
—to understand by what experience and on what foun¬ 
dation of faith he had been able to erect the structure 


THE APPARITION ON BORESTONE 207 


of his implicit belief in God’s healing bounty—a bless¬ 
ing for soul and for body, if either were ailing. 

Ashael could not be induced to give a name to this 
bounty. Man had no right, he declared, to bound by 
a designation any truth everlasting and illimitable. 

With just as much decision the old man forbore per¬ 
sistently from telling his own name to Lang. On one 
occasion he definitely locked the door of his anonym¬ 
ity. He proceeded to do it in this way: “Who was the 
judge who presided at the Trask trial?” he asked. 

“Justice Deland.” 

“Is he a man of his word?” 

“Scrupulously so.” 

“You are a shrewd man—a persistent man, my 
friend. You know how I was obliged to reveal to 
Judge Deland enough to prove my right to perform 
a marriage. It is in your thoughts to ask him, some 
day, what he knows about my identity. Isn’t that so?” 

“Yes.” 

“He promised not to tell any man what I told him. 
I am glad to hear you confirm his trustworthiness. 
Won’t you assure me that you will never mention the 
matter to him—will not tempt a trustworthy man? 
This is not a whim. The matter concerns others who 
must not be troubled by the knowledge that I am 
alive.” 

“You have my word on the matter, sir. I’ll never 
mention it to Judge Deland.” 

On this especial occasion Ashael loaned to Lang a 
book whose title was “Charity.” The lawyer had 
been getting his reading from the old man’s lean library 
for his tedious hours of vigil on Borestone. 

It was not a connected and profound treatise. 
Charity was not dissected but was presented in 
thoughts which the author had gleaned from others. 


208 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Lang took the book with him when he perched him¬ 
self this day on a moss-padded crag of Borestone. He 
slowly read the sentiments, one by one; while he pon¬ 
dered on them he looked abroad over the outspread 
panorama of the hills and forest. 

The mountain was one great block of stone, a mas¬ 
sive obelisk, rooted into the granite of Earth’s foun¬ 
dations. The words of one of the wisest of man’s coun¬ 
sellors seemed especially pointed when Lang read: 

“Though I have all faith, so that I could remove 
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.” 

He laid the book, opened, face down on the moss. 
He had heard the rattle of falling stones; some one was 
climbing up the path. It must be the warden, coming 
to take back his job; the man had been getting rest¬ 
less, though Lang had urged him to stay with Ashael a 
while longer. He beheld the face of Anita Trask. She 
stopped before she came into full view over the edge 
of the rimrock. She seemed puzzled and a bit fright¬ 
ened. 

“I am looking for John Lang.” 

He rose. He was not exactly astonished, beholding 
her. The widow of Serenus Trask truly had a good 
business reason for seeking out the attorney for the 
estate. “I’m afraid you’re finding this beard a little— 
perplexing!” He stroked his hand over his face. 

She came slowly and stood in front of him, apprais¬ 
ing, disapproving. “Why are you staying up on this 
mountain—looking as you do?” 

“I have taken a poor chap’s place as fire-warden 
till he gets well.” 

She was panting after her climb. Her cheeks were 
flushed. Manifestly, her fatigue had provoked resent¬ 
ment because she had been forced to make all that 
effort to come to him. Her sharp tone revealed her 


THE APPARITION ON BORESTONE 209 


feelings. “But you left nobody to take your place 
—to attend to the affairs of the estate—to look after 
my interests.” 

“I’m sorry! I have been very unprofessional. But 
after the trial I was completely unnerved by—well, I 
prefer not to discuss the reasons I had for going away 
for a few days.” 

“A few days!” There was more of mournful re¬ 
proach than irritation in her tone then. 

“When I went away I had no idea of staying in the 
woods so long.” 

He spoke coldly. There was no welcome in his 
manner. There was a long silence between them. 
Tears welled up in her eyes. It was not her nature to 
hold back her emotions when they were deeply stirred. 

“You’re not helping me! I thought you would be 
surprised. I thought you would cry out when you 
saw me—away up here! I came—came alone so I 
could make you jump out of that shell of yours, John 
Lang!” 

“I’m sorry, Mrs. Trask, I truly am. It has been a 
hard climb for you. I ought to be astonished because 
you have taken all this trouble. I mean, I ought to 
be ashamed of having been the cause. But as to 
jumping, I’m afraid I’m not so easily affected by 
surprises.” 

“What’s the matter with you?” she demanded with 
a forceful directness that effected what her sudden 
appearance on the mountain failed to provoke; he 
was genuinely startled and much embarrassed for she 
came along and grabbed his arms and shook him. 

“Aren’t you going to ask me to sit down? I’m a 
wreck!” 

The tears were gone from her eyes. All at once 
she was exhibiting a breezy pertness—more of that 


210 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


naivete which he had experienced in the past. “Where 
is your house, Mister Hermit?” 

He pointed to the brushwood shelter, pulling one 
of his arms free. 

“That accounts for your terrible looks. I wouldn’t 
know you for the same man I saw that night—that 
first night in the city.” She dabbed her hand in an 
impulsive caress across his bearded cheek and stepped 
back, away from him. “Unless you stop being foolish, 
and fix yourself up and come to town, I’ll discharge 
you as my lawyer.” 

“I have decided to give up the position I held with 
Mr. Trask.” 

“You shall not do it!” Her protest had both alarm 
and decision in it. 

“I have absolutely made up my mind on that point. 
I’ll recommend somebody else, or you may have an 
attorney in mind.” 

She stamped her foot. Then she whimpered like a 
child. “It is all in your hands. You’re the only man 
who knows about the estate. It will be betraying me 
—handing me over to somebody who will rob me 
because I don’t know about my own business. You 
shall not be so wicked, John.” 

He did not venture farther in his refusal to serve 
her, not knowing what to do or say just then. While 
he was wondering what sort of consolation he ought 
to offer, she smiled at him—a smile which glimmered 
through tears like sunshine flashing through raindrops. 

Her swift-shuttling moods were beginning to wreck 
his self-poise. He was accustomed to the ways of 
Reba Donworth—he had spent more hours with her 
than with any other woman he had ever known. Reba 
was self-contained, equable in her temperament, con¬ 
sistently pursuing any topic to its logical end. 


THE APPARITION ON BORESTONE 211 


He was now realizing that this beautiful visitant's 
appearance on that mountain top was a more sur¬ 
prising event than he had been willing to admit at 
first. 

“Well, Mister Host, if you don’t ask me to sit 
down, I shall invite myself. I have a perfect right 
to sit down on my own mountain. You know I do own 
it, don’t you?” 

She seated herself on the moss and began to un¬ 
fasten the tapes which bound her skirts to her knees; 
she went at the work leisurely as if she had no inten¬ 
tion of hurrying away down the mountain. 

“I haven’t asked to find out who owns the lands, 
Mrs. Trask.” 

“I own them, as far as you can see. So, by being 
fire-warden up here you have been working for me 
without knowing it. Queer, isn’t it?” 

She smiled mischievously. “You see! You can’t 
really get away from working for me.” 

She shook out the folds of her habit, settled her¬ 
self into a comfortable posture and looked up at him 
archly from under the brim of her hat. “Now what 
have you been doing up here except think and think? 
Sit down and tell me what your thoughts have been.” 

He did not sit down. He avoided the query regard¬ 
ing his thoughts. “I have taken up most of my time 
by reading.” He pointed to the book lying close 
beside her; she had taken the place from which he 
had risen to greet her. 

She craned her neck and looked at the volume, not 
offering to disturb it. “Charity! Did somebody write 
a whole book about charity?” 

“A great many persons helped write this book—it 
is made up of folks’ ideas of what charity is.” 

“Those who make books must know a great deal 


212 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


—must be very wise in regard to what they write 
about.” She picked the volume up, handling it gin¬ 
gerly. “I have never read a whole book through,” 
she confessed artlessly. “I never could seem to under¬ 
stand books. What were you reading just now—when 
I came over the ledge?” 

“I was merely reading in the book, here and there.” 

“But what?” she insisted with some petulance. 
“Just what thing did you read last? Here are the pages 
open to the place. Take the book and tell me.” He 
stepped toward her and took the extended volume from 
her hand. 

“I’m sort of superstitious about books,” she ex¬ 
plained. “Sometimes I open them, just hit or miss, 
and take the first words I see and make them a hint 
on how to act. I’ll try it this time in another way. 
I’ll take the last words you just read. It will be 
funny!” 

He lent himself to her whim and read slowly in 
the voice which had held his auditors spellbound in a 
court room. 

“ ‘Though I have all faith, so that I could remove 
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing.’ ” 

She pondered for some moments. She put her hands 
on the moss and pressed down as if to make sure of 
the vast bulk of stone on which she was elevated above 
the world. Her mood had changed again. She was 
very grave. Her lip trembled. 

“John Lang, tell me! Did the man who wrote those 
words know a great deal? Did he mean what he 
wrote?” 

“He knew a great deal—and I’m sure he believed 
what he wrote.” 

“Give me the book, please.” 

He placed it in her hands. He thought she wanted 


THE APPARITION ON BORESTONE 213 


to corroborate the statement by using her own eyes. 

But she immediately closed the book, and clasped 
it in her hands. “Won’t you sit down, John Lang? I 
want to say something to you.” 

He obeyed her request. 

She looked at the cover of the book and murmured 
its title over and over. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE 
The Way of the Woods 


ANG waited a long time, respecting the 
meditation of the girl. She was tracing 
slowly with a forefinger the lettering of 
the title on the cover of the book. Her 
silence gave him an opportunity to do 
some thinking for himself. 

He was quite resolved to give over the legal affairs 
of the Trask estate to another lawyer. He felt armed 
against any appeal she might make. He wondered 
whether her persistent efforts, dating back to their 
first meeting, to knock out from under him the props 
of his poise, were subtle tactics or merely the out¬ 
cropping of her erratic nature. He was quite sure he 
would not allow her to startle him again. 

He expected he was to be called on to combat her 
pleadings and protests in regard to his connection 
with the estate. He set his teeth together firmly and his 
lower jaw was out-thrust. But immediately his tense¬ 
ness relaxed. Her first words were a query whether he 
did not think the view from the mountain was very 
lovely. He agreed. 

“I suppose, looking out on it day after day, you 
have grown to like it so well you hate to go away and 
leave it?” 

“I am excusing in such a way my neglect of my 
duties.” 

“You must be in love with this region, surely, to 
feel as you do. I don’t believe you know why I have 
come all the way up here to this mountain top.” 

214 












THE WAY OF THE WOODS 


215 


“You have come to ask me some very proper ques¬ 
tions about your business. I’m sorry you were forced 
to do so. I’m truly guilty.” 

“No! You’re guessing wrong. I’ll be very calm 
in what I say because I know I have made you angry 
in the past by saying things you didn’t expect me to 
say. If I’m calm, I hope you won’t think I’m trying 
to jump you.” She stretched forth her arm and swung 
it in a slow arc. “I have come up here to offer to you 
all you see and all that is beyond the rim of the hills. 
I want you to take it for yours. I want you to take 
me, too! Because I love you.” 

He leaped up and strode to and fro. Of what sort 
was this woman who had declared, only a moment 
before, that she was finished with surprises? 

“You are not like a certain foolish old man who 
whined about being afraid of me, are you, John Lang? 
I did not love him. There’s no need of talking about 
any such thing as that.” 

Into his reply he put the resentment he felt on his 
own account. “I understood the situation very well, 
Mrs. Trask. It was perfectly plain to everybody.” 

“But, please sit down! I can’t talk to you when 
you are galloping about in front of me. I don’t expect 
you to say, right off sudden, you’ll take what I’m 
offering. That isn’t your nature. You’re different 
from the other men I have met. They have all begged 
me to take them. I love you because you’re strong and 
honest. I need you to lift me and all my troubles on 
to your shoulders. It will be only a light load for a 
man like you. Won’t you sit down? You don’t under¬ 
stand right now. After I’ve told you something you 
will not scowl at me, perhaps.” 

Suddenly she broke out of the wistful placidity. She 
doubled her fist and beat upon the cover of the book. 


216 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“Is that where charity is—is it only in a book? The 
man was wise and knew the truth of what he wrote, 
you said! But is charity only something to read 
about? Haven’t you any charity in you? I tell you to 
sit down! Are you afraid to be tested as to your 
charity?” 

That exhortation of his courage prevailed; he sat 
down. 

“You’re big and honest, and you’re not like the rest 
I saw outside in the world. But you’re human. You 
have been curious about me. I have seen that much 
in your eyes. You want me to tell you just who I 
am. I can’t do that. I don’t know, myself. But the 
time has come for me to open my heart to you, John. 
Will you be patient and listen?” 

He nodded his assent. 

“I only know I was a little girl in the woods, as far 
back as I can remember,” she continued after a long 
study of the distant hills. “I lived in a log cabin with 
folks. But my father and mother weren’t there. They 
were never there. When the woods woman was ugly 
because I didn’t slave for her, she twitted me about 
my lady mother. And I have always had dreams and 
visions about my lady mother.” 

She paused and looked up into the sky, raptly. Lang 
remembered what Serenus Trask had said about those 
visions, hushing his tones and entreating to be reas¬ 
sured as to her sanity. 

“I did have a lady mother! I did not belong with 
that scum. But they would never tell me why I was 
there. They did not dare abuse me. Somebody was 
watching over me. I’m sure I did not dream all the 
dreams. I have seen my lady mother in the night. I 
know I was awake. She put her hands to my cheeks 
and kissed me!” 


THE WAY OF THE WOODS 


217 


She studied his face for some time. “But you’re a 
lawyer and you don’t believe in a girl’s dreams, or in 
what she only thinks she knows. So, I’ll say no more 
about being a little girl in a log house in the woods. 

“But in the woods I saw only one way to get the 
things one wants to have. It’s the way of the woods! 
The weaker must give up to the stronger. Even the 
trees fight with each other for dirt to cover their roots 
and for the sunlight to make them grow. The hunter 
shoots the innocent animals. The traps are set every¬ 
where. When I was a very little girl I hated my fur 
coat and my cap because I had seen the poor minks 
waiting in the traps with broken paws—just waiting 
and suffering till the man of my house came and killed 
them with a club. But when I grew to be a bigger girl 
I stopped caring. I fell into the way of the woods! 

“Then there came a young man who was handsome, 
and I ran away with him and we were married. 

“He believed in the way of the woods, too. And I 
helped him to set traps for other men, because he made 
me do it—and I didn’t care. I might tell you how 
sometimes I used to think about my lady mother— 
and then I did care. I might tell you some of my 
thoughts, and how I hated myself for a little while, 
and then, perhaps, you’d feel more kind toward me. 
But there isn’t time to tell you all those things—and 
I might seem like trying to take advantage of what 
I’m not really entitled to.” 

He followed her gaze toward the west when she 
paused in her recital. The sun was getting low. He 
found himself confronted by a situation which he did 
not know how to handle. He felt like sparring for 
time. 

“No, there is not time for much more talk just now, 
Mrs. Trask. It will not be safe for you to go down 


218 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the mountain after dark. It’s getting dim in the 
valley, even now.” 

She paid no attention to his suggestion. “So it came 
to the time when he set a trap for the old man of the 
Double T. Of course, I had to help him with the 
trap. I had done so much in the past, when he com¬ 
manded me—and he thought I wouldn’t care what next 
I did. But I had clung to one thing, John Lang— 
my honesty as a wife, no matter what else I had done. 
I don’t need to explain all to you, do I?” 

“No!” 

“When he tried to make me let go the one thing 
I had clung to—when he wanted me to make a lie of 
a marriage with the old man so the real husband could 
have his clutch on me always-” 

She turned inquiring gaze on the attorney. “There’s 
a name in the law for the crime, John Lang. I’ve for¬ 
gotten!” 

“Bigamy.” 

“Perhaps the crime of killing a man who tried to 
force a wife to do a thing like that would not be so 
terrible—judging from the way of the woods!” She 
was again looking away from the lawyer, into the red 
of the sunset. 

“It would be murder.” 

“I did not kill him. I have told you! I was follow¬ 
ing him to the place where I was to give him the 
money. There was a man who was following both of 
us. Mack Templeton had made enemies everywhere. 
I had often heard men threaten to kill him. So I was 
frightened that day. I did not wait to pay the money 
—I was afraid the other man would take it. I ran 
away!” 

Even though his legal mind made him an unwilling 
skeptic to some extent, his heart was enlisted for her 



THE WAY OF THE WOODS 


219 


in the battle she had made against odds in her life. 
But he wanted to end the distressing interview. 
Abruptly, he changed the subject. “We must be 
starting down the mountain. Come! I will assist 
you.” 

“We have not settled the business which has brought 
me here,” she said stubbornly. 

“We cannot talk any more about it.” 

She stood up before him. She spread her arms to 
indicate the stretch of her possessions. In the last 
red glare of the sunset, against the lurid screen of the 
sky, she was the incarnation of the Spirit of Temp¬ 
tation, and he was honest enough to admit that he was 
not altogether immune from the influence she was 
exerting. 

“There it lies, John Lang! All the miles of it! I 
don’t know what to do with it. All the time I’m 
fighting men who want to steal it from me. I’m giving 
it to you. All you need to do is to care for it—and 
take me with it. See how little I am, standing here 
in the middle of it! So small a thing as I am won’t 
be any extra burden!” 

“I cannot take any such gift! I can’t even discuss 
such a matter sensibly.” 

“Do I spoil it all because I want you to take me 
with it?” 

He was not sure whether it was anger that pricked 
him then—it was some sort of sentiment of revolt. “I 
don’t know what to say to you! You’re putting me in 
a perfectly damnable position!” 

“Well, suppose we wait till we’re calmed down,” 
she suggested meekly. “It’s an important matter, and 
we must talk it over.” 

“At some other place—at some other time! We 
must get off this mountain before night settles.” 


220 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“There’s no place in the whole wide world where we 
can be as honest with each other as up here. I came 
here because I knew it would be so! I have been 
honest with you.” 

“I purposed to be honest with you, also, Mrs. Trask. 
I must tell you-” 

She hurried to him and placed her hand on his lips. 
“I took plenty of time to think it all over before I 
came to you. I have surprised you. It isn’t right and 
just for you to answer me back until you have taken 
plenty of time to think. Isn’t that the way it is in 
the law—don’t you all take a lot of time so you may 
come to the right judgment? Of course you do!” 

She stepped away from him. “I’ll allow you to 
think. I’ll not bother you. There’s plenty of time. 
If you speak too quickly I shall be angry because you 
will be slighting my offer. I shall not believe you 
when you speak unless you take a long time to think.” 

“There is no time to waste, I tell you! You know 
what that mountain-side is!” 

“It’s terrible. It’s too dark now to think of going 
down.” 

“I’ll go down for help—we’ll make some sort of a 
litter-” 

“No—no! I’ll not risk my neck that way. And 
I’ll not be left alone here. I’m going to sit down.” 
She resumed her seat on the moss. 

“John Lang, what right have you to tell me I can’t 
sit on my own mountain just as long as I want to sit 
here? If you’re willing to say it’s yours, I’ll allow 
you to drive me off. But until you do say the word, 
this mountain is mine. Sit down and be good, and 
do your thinking.” Her determination clicked. 

He went apart from her and sat on a boulder and 
watched the colors fade in the west. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR 
Two Alone on Borestone 



OHN LANG, sitting in the peace of the 
evening, was promptly aware that he was 
not harboring anger in spite of the girl’s 
amazing procedure. He gazed long in 
her direction. She did not speak to him. 

Her humble patience, yonder in the shadows which 
now were wrapping the summit of Borestone, made 
softening appeal to him. There was a piteous quality 
in what she had told him of her life. She had made 
her struggle against besetting conditions, with her 
own poor weapons, even as he had done with his 
broader understanding of men and the ways of men. 

After all his ponderings in the loneliness of his 
existence on Borestone, he was less inclined to sit in 
judgment. In his defense of her in court, he had quite 
convinced himself of her innocence of the death of 
young Trask. Lang was inexorably impelled, in his 
newer mental enlightenment, to blame himself for 
that catastrophe; in fact, his conscience was accusing 
him bitterly, even as poor Skiddy Trask had predicted. 

As to what had really happened in Templeton’s case 
in the Brassua woods- 

John Lang, in those days, was filled with sympathy 
for other sinners. He was almost ready to credit her 
vague statement that she did not know what had 
happened. At the worst, admitting that she was con¬ 
cerned in the taking off of Templeton, she had de¬ 
fended the one thing to which she clung—the honor 
of her womanhood! 

He looked again in her direction; she had not moved. 

221 















222 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


The light was dim but he could see that she had 
picked up the volume entitled “Charity” and was cud¬ 
dling it at her breast. He felt the swift grip of 
emotion’s unseen fingers at his throat. He wanted to 
offer her some sort of consolation. There was some¬ 
thing childlike about her, after all—in her changing 
moods, her disregard of conventions, her grotesque 
forwardness. But he could not console her as he 
would comfort a grieving child; he was afraid she 
would not understand the new mildness which he 
entertained in regard to her. 

With the common, masculine impulse in the way 
of cheering children, he decided to give her something 
to eat. While he was starting his little fire with fagots 
in the stone oven built against the side of a ledge, she 
came close and watched him. 

“I am used to cooking in the woods,” she said. 
“I’m homesick when I see you puttering with the 
fire. Bring me what you have to eat and let me make 
supper! Please do!” 

He was glad because she could occupy herself with 
work instead of thoughts. Therefore, he brought 
utensils and the food, opened the tins and gave her 
full charge. She was deft and nimble and she under¬ 
stood the woods art of making plain materials tasty 
with a new touch. She even prevailed on him to bring 
the sheet iron oven and she fashioned biscuits small 
and puffy and nicely browned when they were done 
—each one hardly more than a delicious mouthful; 
they were a great improvement on the sprawly affairs 
he had been turning out. 

All this work took time and it was late when they 
had sipped the last pannikin of tea. They turned their 
backs on the fire flare and looked up at the sparkle 
of stars ill the heavens. 


TWO ALONE ON BORESTONE 223 


“I won’t apologize for the brushwood shelter. You 
are used to the woods and will understand,” he ven¬ 
tured. “It’s yours for the night.” 

“I have slept many nights in the open without a 
shelter, John Lang. I did it because I liked to do it. 
But tonight I don’t intend to sleep. I’m going to sit 
here. I’ll have a good time looking up at the stars. 
I’ll not trouble you with my chatter. I have said 
what I had to say. We have now broken bread to¬ 
gether. We are friends, at any rate. And when you 
are ready to talk to me I’ll listen. I know you will 
not talk to a friend till your best judgment has told 
you what to say!” 

Somewhere down the mountain a whip-poor-will 
flicked the air with its staccato notes. Away off on 
some placid water a loon wailed its oboe call in pro¬ 
longed diminuendo. 

“So many people never really know what the night 
is,” she murmured. “The city folks don’t know. Even 
if they were up here, as we are, they wouldn’t under¬ 
stand. They’d be lonesome. I am not.” 

He did not speak, and there was a long silence. 

“Do you know the names of the stars?” she queried 
after a time. “The big ones! I have often wondered, 
but I have never had anybody to tell me. The folks 
I have been with in this life have never been willing to 
look up at the stars.” 

He found inexpressible pathos in that simple state¬ 
ment. 

Glad because she was again able to busy herself 
with something beside her introspection, he pointed 
out the constellations and named the stars as far as 
his limited knowledge would permit. 

He had been dreading this night, but somehow it 
did not seem long. He had feared more of those out- 


224 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


bursts of hers—the embarrassment of those amazing 
demands—the statements which had put him at such 
a disadvantage, when he had recourse to anger in 
default of any sane rejoinder. 

There were times when they did not converse. He 
heard her crooning the word “Charity,” repeating it 
over and over as if she were invoking the spirit of 
the virtue. 

Lang was not sure of his thoughts. He tried to 
follow some consecutive plan of reasoning this thing 
out, but every time he builded his little edifice of the- 
right-thing-to-do, some mental devil frisked in and 
knocked the whole business down. 

He had come to the point where he was admitting 
that his hard and fast resolution to quit her service 
was less stern; it was willing to reopen the case and 
listen to arguments. But he realized all his general 
bitterness against humanity, and was afraid lest rancor 
had influenced him to make a more lenient allowance 
in her behalf. 

He might be able to please the cocksure scandal¬ 
mongers, he reflected sourly, if he should go obediently 
along according to the plan they had mapped out for 
him. He would not be astonishing a world which had 
already discounted the future in his affairs. 

He kept assuring himself earnestly that his affection 
for Reba Donworth was unchanged in spite of her 
attitude toward him. He liked to think his was a 
nature of stability and purpose, not to be swerved 
from the straight-ahead by obstacles which would 
check other men. He placed her estimation of him 
as a man above all other prizes he sought in the way 
of worldly commendation just then. 

He was not in the mood to set much value on 
approbation by the general run of mankind. He had 


TWO ALONE ON BORESTONE 225 


always told Reba about getting what he went after; 
he had been especially emphatic in his declaration 
that he would win her. He had the queer feeling of 
not wanting to have her think of him as a quitter. 

In the other, and practical, affairs of his life he had 
been able to work out problems to his satisfaction. 
But this love thing seemed to be a jumbled-up business. 
He was not able to arrive at definite conclusions. He 
had the dim notion that he was pretty much wrong, 
anyway, in trying to make love a matter of the head, 
exclusively, instead of leaving it all to the heart. But 
he was aware, even then, of pursuing the folly of 
analyzing sentiment, weighing it pro and con. 

He wondered if there could be a woman some¬ 
where in the world who would ever make him realize 
with all the power of his being that he was in love 
—unquestioningly and devotedly in love! He looked 
at the girl who sat near him in the shadows of the 
mountain’s loneliness and he was conscious of a surge 
of pitying tenderness. The feeling helped him, 
cleansed him, filtered the grosser elements from the 
attractions she undeniably exerted. 

There came the usual wind before dawn, a slow, 
chilling draught across the mountain top. He saw 
she was huddled with arms linked around her knees. 

“Are you cold?” 

“Yes!” 

“Won’t you sit under the bough shelter?” 

“No!” 

A few minutes later he heard the soft clicking of 
her teeth as she shivered with indrawn sighs of dis¬ 
comfort. Lang brought a blanket from the shelter and 
knelt beside her and wrapped it around her shoul¬ 
ders. She helped him, drawing the folds close; she 
took off the broad hat and scaled it away; she asked 


226 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


him to pull the blanket high about her face. Then, 
before he had risen from beside her, she nestled close 
to him and laid her head against his shoulder. If he 
had removed himself she would have fallen on the 
moss. 

“I am all right, now—I am all right!” she mur¬ 
mured. “Let me sleep a few minutes—I am so tired!” 

He did not move. 

“Yes, I’m so tired—thinking—thinking!” she went 
on. “I haven’t any head for it. You know best, and 
you must think for both of us. I trust in you. I 
know it will be all right after you have thought.” 

He did not require that adjuration of hers—to 
think! She had shifted to him the burden of taking 
thought for both of them. 

After a little while he set his arm gently about her 
shoulders; there was no suggestion of an embrace of 
affection; it was in the way of protection. He pulled 
the blanket closer about her. She responded by relax¬ 
ing her muscles, lying against him with the trustful¬ 
ness of a child who was surrendering herself to an 
approved guardian. 

His thoughts which had been rioting like a mob 
began to marshal themselves into more orderly ranks 
as he concentrated on his affairs. And naturally, in 
that marshaling, he began to take account of stock of 
friends and enemies, separating those who were for 
him from the mass of those who were against him. As 
he visualized his thoughts he saw the faces of only a 
few whom he could call loyal friends. Even Reba— 
he carried the memory of her face when he saw it 
last. Imperturbably indifferent! He wondered why 
he was making such a fetish of his own loyalty, carry¬ 
ing to such an extent his pertinacious stubbornness 
in the achievement of what he had started out to do! 


TWO ALONE ON BORESTONE 227 


“We seem to be pretty much alone in this world, 
don’t we?” murmured the girl in the clasp of his arm. 

Yes, alone and alike, he reflected with bitterness. 
The hand of humanity was raised against the two of 
them. He had fought those who tried to take from 
him what he had held to be precious—Anita had 
battled in the same way—and both of them had suf¬ 
fered. He admitted the selfishness of which they had 
accused him! Why not make the most of selfishness, 
as the others did? Once more he pondered on the 
persistent scandalmongers—why astonish them by 
failure to fulfil their predictions? 

His attitude of an impeccable Launcelot began to 
wear a somewhat ridiculous aspect as he pondered. 
Who was thanking him for his righteousness? He 
was aware of gaps in the armor of defense he had put 
on. Through one of them the wistful patience of 
Anita at that moment entered and touched him. 

Then he remembered what Judge Anderson had 
said about love—and that memory brought up a vision 
of Mavis Duncan, because he had wondered what sort 
of sentiment it was that had made him yearn to offer 
her his protection. But he instantly put away the 
thought of Mavis—she had taken herself out of his 
life. 

Then, in the dead ashes of what he had put behind 
him, stirred a flame. What was love, anyway? Was 
this it? Was love something which suddenly urged a 
human being to toss away all caution and regard for 
conventions, all consideration for the speech of people? 
In his desperation he was quite willing to go to that 
extreme—testing this new and strange emotion which 
had attacked his nature, self-centered till then. He 
gave up the problem—in those woodland wilds it was 
easy to succumb to the primitive! 


228 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Slowly he lifted his free hand to Anita’s cheek 
and raised her face till he could look into her eyes 
which flashed back to him the reflection of the star¬ 
light—and something else which thrilled him. 

“Love!” she whispered. “I knew it was waiting 
for me. It’s—this!” She put her arms about his 
neck and met his kiss when he lowered his face to 
hers. “Take me—John!” 


CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE 
He Who Came in the Morning 



j LOWLY the dawn filtered through the gray 
mesh of the east and the wind died and 
the tints of pearl in the skies were sup¬ 
planted by the hues of the rose. And 
with the dawn came Ashael, toiling up 
over the rim rock. He was alone. 

Anita merely opened her eyes when the old man 
greeted Lang. She did not offer to move from her 
protector’s arm nor did Lang take himself away from 
her. There was something akin to defiance in Lang’s 
persisting in his embrace of the girl. It was as if 
his night ponderings had decided him to defy the 
world in general, beginning with the first one who 
laid eyes on his new association with Anita. 

“I came up here because I was afraid something had 
happened,” said the old man with a hint of apology. 

“Nothing has happened,” returned the lawyer, 
conscious within himself that a great deal had hap¬ 
pened. “Mrs. Trask was very much exhausted by 
her climb yesterday and was afraid to go down the 
mountain after dark. It became night before we 
realized.” 

“Her man came to my camp last evening and re¬ 
ported. He dared not disobey her orders. He said 
you told him not to come on the mountain,” he in¬ 
formed Anita. 

“Yes, I ordered him to stay with the horses.” 

“That’s why I came—and if everything’s all right 
I’ll go away again.” 


229 









230 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Lang released the girl and struggled upon his feet. 
He was numbed and his cramped muscles refused 
him service for some moments. He stood in his tracks, 
getting control of himself. 

Anita arose. She went close to Lang and whispered, 
“Is everything all right?” 

“I hope so,” he paltered. His thoughts were not 
clear; the shadows of the night were still involved 
with his attempts to arrive at the proper solution of 
the problem which had confronted him again in the 
frank light of day. 

“You have had a long time for thinking, John 
Lang.” 

“But the matter is tremendously important—for 
both of us.” 

She smiled up at him. “You say ‘for both of us’! 
You have put me into your thoughts along with your¬ 
self! I thank you, John! That’s enough for now—it’s 
sweetly enough for now! I know everything will be 
all right!” 

The smile faded on her face when she turned on 
Ashael. Here was not merely an interloper who had 
broken upon a tete-a-tete—here came an influence 
which she instinctively feared. She believed that she 
had been near the realization of all her hopes. Lang’s 
earlier manner of the morning signified much, when she 
had looked up into his face. But her experiences in 
life had taught her to be apprehensive when success 
was only half won. She had been obliged to play life 
as a game and knew how often inconsiderable acci¬ 
dents caused Fate to turn the wrong card. 

However, after the joy of the night, she felt a 
fresh confidence in herself. She swaggered when she 
strode in front of the old man. She peremptorily 
ordered him to go away. 


HE WHO CAME IN THE MORNING 231 


“And you twitted me yesterday of not being in 
close touch with my attorney! You now see in what 
close touch I am, and I don’t need any more advice 
from you about law. I order you off my lands—you 
and all the scum you’re encouraging to steal my 
property.” 

“It’s the matter of the squatters, Lawyer Lang!” 
explained Ashael quietly, noting the attorney’s per¬ 
plexity. “If you want me to explain to you-” 

“I will explain,” she broke in rudely. “I propose 
to take Mr. Lang this very day to look at one of the 
horrible places you’re keeping on my lands. ” 

She turned to Lang. “It’s on the way to the home 
camp at Hagas. I ask—yes, I must insist on your 
going with me to Hagas. There’s much business to 
look after and I need your help. You can send to 
the city for the papers of the estate. You must come 
with me.” She was exerting all her power. “There’s 
a horse for you at the foot of the mountain. Dawson 
can walk back.” 

In the sanity of sunlight Lang looked at Ashael and 
flinched; she noted the new expression with anxious 
suspicion. Lang turned to face her. 

“I have made a promise and I must respect it; I 
told the warden I would stay on the mountain until he 
is able to climb up and take back his job.” He smiled 
slightly, aware of the puerility of the excuse and 
pricked by her manifest scepticism. “I’ll admit it’s 
rather a minor job, considering the other work wait¬ 
ing for me. But I’m protecting your lands by staying 
here.” 

“I’ll relieve you from this work, John Lang. No 
matter if the fire does come and rage. There’s a bigger 
thing to look after. You know! I need you!” 

“The warden is coming back to Borestone today,” 



232 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


announced Ashael, paying no heed to Lang’s frown. 
“Dawson told him that the Widow Trask had come to 
hunt up her lawyer.” 

Lang in his sudden spirit of resentment was tempted 
to pick up the heliograph and fling it over the cliff; 
news of Anita’s quest would go winking from station 
to station, to be translated into gossip which would 
reach town all too soon. 

“So there’s no excuse for you to stay,” affirmed 
Anita. Entreating, she patted Lang’s arm. 

His eyes left hers and he looked over her head in an 
earnest stare and, as she had done before, she turned 
to follow the direction of his gaze. Ashael folded his 
arms and returned the stare. 

She was between the two. She was conscious of 
some mysterious element beyond her comprehension in 
that man-to-man conference with the eyes. But she 
believed she did know something about what Ashael 
was conveying by his expression. His sombreness 
seemed like a rebuke. She was convinced that the 
recluse was unfriendly to her. .Yet she could hardly 
believe that a mere old man of the woods could have 
any effective influence over John Lang. 

However, Lang proceeded to address the hermit 
and in a manner which deepened the mystery for 
Anita; it seemed as if there were some kind of an 
understanding between the men. “Do I get you right, 
Ashael? I sort of pledged myself to you when I came 
up here. Haven’t I stayed out from under a roof long 
enough? Do you think I need to look further into 
the heart of the heavens?” 

“I do.” 

It was a solemn declaration, pregnant with deep 
significance. 

Anita’s quick, apprehensive glance found bodeful 


HE WHO CAME IN THE MORNING 233 


surrender in the man on whom Ashael bent his mean¬ 
ing gaze. 

After a few moments of thought Lang took Anita’s 
hand and led her across the small plateau, away from 
the old man. The morning sun shone full on their 
faces; there were no more night shadows on Bores tone; 
the candor of daylight brought saner counsel to a 
man who strove with a problem. 

“When you talked with me last night about your¬ 
self you gave me a chance to understand you better 
than I ever hoped to do. You were honest with me. 
I want to be honest with you.” 

She felt acutely the new reserve in his tone. 

“But you loved me in the night—when you put your 
arm around me—you did love me!” 

He looked steadily off into the wholesome radiance 
of the morning. “You had a right to tell me w r hat 
you did—about your feeling toward me. Every woman 
who cares for a man tells him so—though not always 
with words. But words are honest, and better, when 
one is sure! I’m grateful to you for your frankness. 
I will come to you a little later. I’ll come like a man.” 

“Come with me now.” 

He shook his head, inflexibly firm. 

“I must stay up here for a time—a few days—for 
my own sake.” 

“Then you will never come,” she wailed. 

“I promise you I will. But this is not a matter to be 
settled upon suddenly. I’m respecting your right to 
be made happy after all your troubles of the past. 
When I come to you I shall know! We must build 
upon that sort of a foundation.” 

“I’m afraid to leave you with that man—that old 
man who looks at you the way he does. He will lie 
about me. He doesn’t like me. He will turn you from 


234 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


me. You were loving me till he came and stood and 
looked at you.” 

“I will not allow him to say anything against you.” 

“But he will say something—something—I don’t 
know what he will say—but it will take you from me,” 
she quavered. 

Her understanding was dim, but her instinct was 
keenly bright. She had seen the same queer look pass 
between men before and it had worked against women 
who were weak. Something which was called honor 
—she had heard it challenged and had witnessed the 
response! She sensed some of the deeper qualities 
in John Lang—and she was afraid! 

“Tell him to go away,” she commanded Jn a tense 
whisper. “I don’t want you to talk with him. If you 
will tell him to go away I’ll not be foolish and urge 
you to come along with me now—not till you know— 
and can tell me! If you’ll order him to go I’ll feel sure 
of you—you’ll think only of yourself and myself—and 
it’s between us two the matter lies, John.” 

He called to Ashael. “I’ll stay up here a while longer, 
even if the warden does come back. Mrs. Trask and 
I are grateful for your thoughtfulness. We won’t 
detain you any longer.” 

“Very well!” said Ashael, and he went down over 
the rim rock. 

As soon as the old man was out of sight Anita flung 
her arms around Lang’s neck and kissed him. “Yes, 
stay here!” she urged. “A few days, will you stay? 
Yes! It’s best. You’ll be lonely here. I’ll be glad 
of that. You will look down on where we sat together 
all the night—and you’ll sit there after I’m gone and 
you’ll wish I were back here. I know you’ll wish that. 
Then you’ll come to me! Come to Hagas. I’ll be 
waiting. And then everything will be all right.” 


HE WHO CAME IN THE MORNING 235 


She hurried away from him. He was a bit sur¬ 
prised by her hasty departure. It was rather tantaliz¬ 
ing, but it was adroitly feminine in its effect on him. 
He knew he was sorry to have her go. He followed 
after her and offered to help her down the mountain. 

“But I don’t want you to go,” she insisted. “I 
want you to stay up here and think about me after I’m 
gone.” She flung a kiss to him from her fingertips and 
disappeared among the lower ledges. 

Wtien she saw Ashael on a ladder far below, she 
stopped and picked up a big rock. She did it quickly, 
as if by impulse. But she slowly laid the rock down 
as if second thought had rebuked instinct and had 
suggested a better way. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX 
The Spark in the Tinder 


her journey back to Hagas waters from 
the foot of Borestone, Anita rode alone. 
She knew the road home, she told Daw¬ 
son, and did not need his services. Her 
manner toward him plainly showed little 
relish for his companionship. 

After they had started and when they were a few 
rods along on the road she had turned suddenly on 
him, detecting his expression before he had time to 
mask it. 

“Where is the location of the trouble which has 
been reported between the Double T and the Tu- 
landic?” she demanded curtly. 

“On the Whirlingstone, madam. It’s the old row 
and it has broken out again because the Blake heiress 
has gone away to Europe and left her bosses to do 
as they want to. Just now they’re blowing our splash 
dams to steal our waters for their drives.” 

“Which way is Whirlingstone?” 

He pointed toward the north; they were headed 
south. 

“Have we plenty of dynamite, Dawson?” 

“Lots of it, madam.” 

“You don’t feel as gentle, do you, toward the bosses 
of the Tulandic as you do toward the squatters who 
are stealing from me?” 

“The bosses are able to stand up and make it a 
fair, square, man fight,” he said, setting his jaws. 

236 











THE SPARK IN THE TINDER 237 


“All right! You go up there! Take charge. Go 
now!” She flourished her crop in a gesture of dis¬ 
missal. “When they blow one of our dams, go ahead 
and blow two of theirs—then buy more dynamite.” 

She did not proceed on her way until he was out of 
sight. Then she sighed, indicating relief because she 
was alone, and struck her horse and hurried him. 
Once more the mistress of the Double T rode into 
the squalid settlement of Pugwash, walking her horse 
slowly and studying the melancholy faces upturned to 
watch her progress. 

Near one cabin a cow, whose ribs showed like slats 
under canvas, was cropping herbage among stumps of 
trees. In a patch of shade cast by the shack a 
dispirited woman was feebly working up and down 
the stick of the dash-churn. Several pairs of rusty 
shears were stuck into the ground around the churn; 
the woman called querulously and a neighbor came 
and brought more shears and stuck them down. 

“Ride! Ride, all so proud and gay and look down 
on the poor folks!” squalled the woman of the churn, 
resting her dasher. “We’re not afraid of you! We’re 
down to where nothing you can do to us can hurt us 
more’n what has been done.” 

“I’m sorry for what I said yesterday,” returned 
Anita, hypocritically humble. “I spoke without realiz¬ 
ing what dreadful trouble you are in. Dawson and 
my other agents lied about you. What is the matter 
here? I want to help you all.” 

The woman was softened immediately; this bit of 
sympathy from one of the lordly oppressors tripped 
her emotions and she began to cry in sniffling fashion. 
In the still air Anita’s voice had carried far and the 
attention of the community was attracted. Men and 
women and children, they rose and staggered toward 


238 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the cabin where Anita had paused. Incidents of inter¬ 
est were all too few in that neighborhood, and their 
curiosity was stirred. But the promise of help was so 
novel that their hope was also stirred—and hope had 
long been moribund in that place. Each had personal 
appeal to offer; however, in their lethargy, they 
allowed the woman of the churn to do the talking for 
all. 

“The butter won’t even come!” she wailed. “Every¬ 
thing has been bad, but now it has come to this. My 
Gawd, the butter won’t whey! The ’chanter don’t 
mind the shears! The devil and his witches come right 
past the shears!” 

“I don’t understand,” protested Anita, wrinkling her 
forehead. 

“Don’t you know what everybody knows—that 
when you stick shears around the churn they keep 
the ’chantment away?” 

The bystanders endorsed this accepted truth, mum¬ 
bling their affirmation. 

“But this ’chantment is so wicked that even the 
shears can’t keep away the devil and his witches. 
Look at us! We’re all ’chanted with the hellish tick- 
de-loorum that has been put on us. Sumac tea even 
ain’t good any more. All the time we’re growing 
worse.” 

“The ’chanter has goofered us,” boomed a shrunken 
old man in sepulchral tones. 

“Who is this—whatever you call him?” Anita in¬ 
quired, showing profound interest. 

“We want to know—that’s what we want to know!” 

Another man spoke, his tones sharp with the rage 
of suffering helplessness past the stage of endurance. 
“But we’re going to find out, and we’ll know what to 
do with him.” 


THE SPARK IN THE TINDER 239 


“It ain’t a him—it’s a her—it’s a witch,” declared 
another in the group of superstitious misery. 

Then there was a chorus of clamorous argument— 
shrill cries of insistent women and hollow barking of 
dissenting men. Manifestly, the topic was one which 
had engrossed the settlement for a long time. It had 
been talked so much that opinions were fixed and 
nobody paid any attention to the reasons of anybody 
else in that bedlam of contention. 

Anita studied them while they raved at each other. 
The pack had no leader, she perceived. Lacking a 
leader, they merely snapped and snarled in aimless 
fashion. She knew the natures of such mongrel com¬ 
munities in the North woods, out of her personal 
experiences. She had seen similar natures employed 
as tools by those who had the wit to guide them. 

When she had looked down on Ashael’s head, on 
the Borestone trail, and had laid aside the rock which 
she had impulsively picked up, she knew where more 
efficient weapons awaited her use. The desperate and 
mysterious illness afflicting them, their fears, their 
despair, their rankling sense of injury made them 
tinder for a kindling suggestion. In Ashael’s case, her 
enmity had become settled—even a bit ferocious. 

She raised her hand and stilled the pack. 

“If there is an enchanter at work here, it must be 
somebody who keeps in close touch with you.” 

They agreed with her; matters were continually 
growing worse, they said. There had been no spells of 
respite. 

“He must be somebody who is not like anybody 
else in these parts,” she hinted craftily. “Who is there 
about here, some one strange—and different?” 

They did not reply; they looked up at her as if they 
were willing to trust to her knowledge and guidance. 


240 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“Who is that peculiar old man—the one who was 
here yesterday and who talked to me?” 

A fellow on the outskirts of the crowd, a man low¬ 
browed and heavy-jowled with a withered neck sag¬ 
ging in folds, squinted at her. “I’ve said all along 
as how it’s him—I’ve said it over and over, and they 
won’t agree with me!” 

“I won’t let it be said it’s him,” a woman screamed. 
“No, I won’t. He healed my father years ago. He 
stopped my brother’s blood when the axe gashed him.” 

“Yes—years ago!” snarled the low-browed man. 
“Fooling folks along—it’s the way the devil always 
takes!” 

“He preaches God and goodness to us,” said another 
woman. “It would be better for some of you men 
if you’d listen to him. God punishes wickedness.” 

“God ain’t doing this to us, and the critter lies who 
says so!” 

Again Anita secured silence. “I have talked with 
wise folks about witchcraft—about bad men who put 
spells on poor folks. There are tests which can be 
made to prove whether a man is a sorcerer or a wizard. 
Those names are the ones wise folks have for men 
who are in league with the devil.” 

“You’re right! Put ’em in the fire! That’s the 
test!” declared the low-browed man. 

“No, no!” she expostulated. “You must not use fire. 
That’s very dangerous.” She looked around appre¬ 
hensively at the stretch of the Double T forest. 

“They hold ’em under water and count the bubbles,” 
averred a man in the throng. “If there are thirteen 
bubbles, he’s a witch.” 

“Listen to me,” said Anita with decision. “Men 
who go about on my lands, stirring up folks like you to 
do this or that against me, are bad men. They get 


THE SPARK IN THE TINDER 241 


you into trouble. You men can manage your own 
business without advice. I can see well enough you 
are all right, if others will leave you alone.” 

They brightened under her praise. They surveyed 
her with increasing favor. 

“The bad men should be forced to go away from 
these parts. I think the wise folks told me some¬ 
thing about the test by water. I don’t remember 
exactly. But you seem to understand about witch¬ 
craft.” She pointed to the shears stuck around the 
churn. “I’ll leave it to you to know what to do. It’s 
a matter to be attended to right away. If a wizard 
finds out by his spells about your plans of punishment, 
he may do something much worse than what he has 
done, if you give him a few hours’ start of you.” 

So far as their benumbed intellects were concerned, 
she had, in those words, indicated the culprit and had 
set the time for action. Their expressions told her that 
she had prevailed. The pack had been running in 
circles, seeking a trail. In their fury, they merely 
needed to be directed and encouraged. 

“Remember, I’m your friend!” she urged. “When 
the bad man has been made to go away, you and I 
will get along very well.” 

She beckoned to the low-browed man and he came 
through the crowd to the side of her horse. She had 
found more venomous resolution in him than in the 
others. All of the men and women edged closer when 
she produced her purse and gave money to the man 
whom she had chosen for her leader. “This is to be 
spent for the good of all of you,” she warned. “For 
food and medicine. I shall keep watch. I shall come 
here again very soon. If the bad man has gone away 
by that time, and you are getting better, I shall do 
something else to help you.” 


242 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“His case will be attended to tonight,” promised the 
leader, clutching the money. 

“I hope it will be tonight so he can’t harm you any 
more. Make him go away. But take warning! My 
name is not to be used. Understand that well! It’s 
wholly your affair, and I’m simply your friend. If I 
hear that anybody has named me in this case I’ll do 
no more to help you.” 

They gazed at the money in the man’s hand. They 
promised with an eager chorus to do their best to 
please her in all things. 

Then the mistress of the Double T rode on toward 
Hagas Waters. Her resentful reflections comforted 
her. 

The old man of Angel Knob would not be able to 
put into spoken words of dissuasion the sentiments 
which he had so plainly expressed by his rebuking 
gaze on the top of Borestone. 

There was nobody except Ashael in all the North 
country—on her barony—who would dare influence 
John Lang against her. John Lang had promised to 
come to her. She had confidence in the power of her 
own influence, after what she had perceived in his 
eyes when she hurried away from him, leaving him 
unsatisfied. 

She believed that her woman’s alluring persuasion 
would be left free to work, provided the old meddler 
were removed from further contact with John Lang, 
challenging that hateful sense of honor which men 
prized among themselves in such a foolish way! 

She had employed good and subtle strategy, she was 
certain. She smiled, cantering her mount toward her 
Hagas castle. It should be made ready for the lord of 
her heart and her lands! 


CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN 
The Law 

twilight John Lang came down off Bore- 
stone, his few belongings in his pack. 
The warden had returned to take over the 
job. There was no excuse for the substi¬ 
tute to stay longer, an extra mouth help¬ 
ing to exhaust the scanty stores. That was what Lang 
told himself, excusing his hasty departure. 

But when the sun went down toward the west in 
the afternoon following the morning of Anita’s tanta¬ 
lizing leave-taking, he was conscious of a sense of 
uneasiness not connected with the food supply. He 
was lonely. The spirit of wanderlust urged him. 

He fell to wondering what abnormal impulse had 
kept him so long a recluse, stupidly cogitating day 
after day on that mountain top, neglecting his affairs, 
shrinking from the world, fearing to go out among men. 

He felt a new uplift of boldness—and there was 
considerable anger in the feeling. There was fight in 
him! In the rush of his emotion he did not stop to 
analyze his sentiments further. 

In order to have plenty of occasion and excuse for 
fighting he was almost willing to allow the world to 
misconstrue the relations of client and counsel—even 
to gossip about his prospective marriage to the widow 
of Serenus Trask, if the world insisted on taking that 
attitude. 

He refused to admit, still unable to be squarely 
honest with himself, that he did intend to marry her 
or that his new attitude was paving the way to the 
243 








244 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


marriage after the usual decorous interval had elapsed. 
He had simply resolved, so he told himself, not to be 
backed down in any proposition which might come up 
in his affairs. 

He knew Anita Trask better—he would not allow 
anybody to slander her. He had championed her in 
court—he would go on and champion her in any other 
place where she might be assailed or threatened. He 
pitied her. She had been like a grieving child on the 
mountain top, sheltered by his arm and trusting her¬ 
self and all her affairs to him. There was only one 
manly and truly honorable thing for him to do now— 
stay by her till those affairs were straightened out. 

He felt less lonely the moment he was on the forest 
level, off the ledges of the mountain where he had been 
elevated above the world. He belonged in the world. 
His interests were in the affairs of men. 

But he was in no hurry to go to town. He had 
mapped his first plans of action; he would have Anita 
send a messenger to the city for the papers of the 
estate in order that client and counsel might go over 
them carefully in the quietness of the home camp on 
Hagas Waters. There were many other matters await¬ 
ing his attention in the city, and there he would be dis¬ 
tracted from the application which the Trask affairs 
required. 

He had decided to lodge with Ashael that night. 
He had a book to return, and he wanted to say his 
farewell. He was not owning up to another con¬ 
sideration, that is to say, not with frankness. But he 
knew well enough he was going forth to give battle 
on all points affecting him. He was in a hurry to begin. 
It was in his thoughts that Ashael might have some¬ 
thing to say to him about the morning scene on the 
top of Borestone. Lang was in a mood to have a trial 


THE LAW 245 

clash of weapons with anybody in the matter of Anita 
Trask, even with a placid old hermit. 

It was dim in the woods where the trail to Angel 
Knob snaked along; but “The Way of the Cross’' was 
well blazed. There were mists in the low places— 
the veils of Spring’s night gear. 

Lang was not superstitious, nor easily alarmed. 
But when he was crossing a clearing he saw what he 
could not readily explain to himself. He beheld gaunt 
figures retreating into the depths of the vapor. He 
was almost positive he perceived faces; they were 
countenances hollowed into the similitude of skulls. 
It was as if he looked on walking skeletons. He hailed, 
but he was not answered. The forms fled and became 
mere shadows and were hidden by the mists. 

When he arrived at the camp on Angel Knob he did 
not mention to Ashael what he had seen, or thought 
he saw. He was quite sure he had been deceived; 
the mists even made the white birches seem like stalk¬ 
ing ghosts. 

Lang and Ashael sat on the porch for a time. Then 
a night wind, a bleak blast for that time of year, 
whipped away the mist and lashed the tree tops back 
and forth across the stars. The men went indoors 
and Ashael kindled a fire on the hearth, kneeling and 
fanning it with the wing of a hawk. 

Their talk on the porch had been mere random chat 
about the season and the woods. 

Ashael, busy with the fire, asked, “Now that you are 
going home to the city, do you feel you’re taking back 
what you came up here to find?” 

It was an opportunity to make a first test of that 
new blade of his championship, and Lang drew 
promptly. “I’m not intending to hurry back to the 
city. Tomorrow I’m going to the Hagas camp of 


246 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the Double T to assist Mrs. Trask in the affairs of 
her estate. I’ve been neglecting my duty to her.” 

Ashael offered no comment. His fire was blazing 
brightly and he seated himself on a high stool and 
looked down at the flames. 

Lang endured the silence as long as he could. “I 
suppose you have something to say about that decision 
and about what you saw on Borestone this morn¬ 
ing!” 

“No, I have nothing to say.” 

“You spoke about my taking something back with 
me—coming up here to find something. What do you 
mean?” Lang demanded, making a pretence of obtuse¬ 
ness. 

“We’d better let the matter rest. You answered me 
to my satisfaction.” 

“I didn’t answer your question, sir. I merely made 
a statement about my plans.” 

“Your statement was sufficient for my understand¬ 
ing. You are not taking the thing back with you, and 
you don’t feel as if you were taking it back.” 

“Take whatl I don’t like riddles.” 

“Your peace of mind.” 

“I’m not to blame because I haven’t found any¬ 
thing of the sort in these woods. It isn’t here!” 

“I found it for myself. It was here when I came 
seeking for it.” 

“Oh, I know what you mean. I’ve been studying 
you and your system. It’s to do all for the other 
fellow—trying to suit the other fellow’s notions of 
what it’s right for you to do, instead of pleasing your¬ 
self,” said Lang irritably. 

“When one thinks merely of pleasing himself he 
is quite likely to be out of tune with a certain great 
harmony which was pitched to the keynote of Truth 


THE LAW 


247 


when the spheres began to revolve. There is no joy 
in being out of tune.” 

“You’ve got to live the life of this world according 
to the human code, or you’ll get nowhere,” 

“This life is given us so we may put ourselves in 
tune with the infinite and the eternal. The great 
harmony eventually drowns out all the discords. But 
each human discord is simply wreaking punishment 
upon himself.” 

“Oh, I know your philosophy all right enough!” 
The irony in Lang’s tone indicated how much he dis¬ 
paraged that philosophy. 

“But it’s not mine,” Ashael remonstrated. “Any 
more than the universe is mine!” 

He got off the stool and pulled down a volume from 
the mantel. Kneeling close to the firelight he read 
aloud. 

“ ‘Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou 
shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But 
I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray 
for them which despitefully use you, and persecute 
you: that ye may be the children of your Father which 
is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil 
and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on 
the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what 
reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the 
same?’ ” 

The recluse closed the volume and looked up at 
Lang. “Do I need to tell you who voiced that phi¬ 
losophy?” 

“No.” 

“The trouble with men is this: they take that, and 
the rest of the universal philosophy voiced by the 
Great Way-Shower, as merely pleasant prattle from 


248 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the parson’s lips of a Sunday morning. But it is just 
as much a practical, working, fundamental law, John 
Lang, as the deepest legal truth on which your com¬ 
mon-law statutes are founded. And you don’t use 
human law merely to make pretty sounds with. You 
use that law as a working tool. But your judges and 
your juries are not infallible. 

“I’m only a poor old moss-grown stick up in these 
woods. I might call myself a sort of hollowed, wooden 
gutter leading from an everlasting spring in the hills 
to a trough beside the dusty way along which men 
pass. Nothing much, of myself! But just as long as I 
serve for a channel—conducting down only a trickle 
of God’s goodness according to my limited capacity 
—I am right! I serve! And I know I am right!” 

“And how about the infernal ingratitude of men 
who get something for nothing?” 

“John Lang, their ingratitude harms only them— 
not me. I am right, obeying the great law. It’s a 
pretty trite statement—that virtue is its own reward! 
But God Almighty knows how true it is—and He 
sent a Messenger to this world to put it in words—and 
because it is in mere words of human invention—the 
words I have read to you—most men let the parson 
babble to make a pretty sound and don’t delve for the 
truth that’s in them.” 

Lang did not reply. The hermit remained on his 
knees, mending the fire. The lawyer was meditating 
on that declaration of Ashael’s in regard to the law, 
his interest piqued from a professional standpoint. 
He was still wilfully resisting the suggestion that 
infraction of the Divine Law was certain to bring 
punishment. The Bible said so, to be sure, but the 
Bible was the parson’s code. It was what the judge 
on the bench said, executing man-made statutes! That 


THE LAW 


249 


passed-down judgment did the business for law¬ 
breakers. 

He did not dwell on the matter with anything like 
exhaustive analysis. He was not in a mental state 
where he cared to employ thought too laboriously. 
The fire leaping up to the stones was a comforting sight 
and influenced him to relax mind and body. He 
looked into the flames and became drowsy; the vigil 
of the night before was having its effect. 

The remembrance of that vigil reminded him sharply 
of Anita; he decided to start for Hagas Waters in the 
first light of the dawn. He looked ahead to the 
morning with zest, telling himself how much he would 
enjoy his walk in the freshness of a new day. Even 
the wind outside lulled him; it swept through the 
trees and whined in the crack of the window sashes. 

A shout, raucously loud, startled him. A man was 
demanding with oaths that somebody come out! 
When Ashael went forth Lang followed. It was not 
black darkness outdoors; the stars were bright in the 
sky from which the wind had swept the clouds. The 
two men on the porch could see many persons among 
the white birches. 

“What is wanted of me?” asked Ashael. 

“You go away from this place. Light your lantern 
and start now. Never come back. Will you go?” 

“I will not go. I know you, Ase Tuttle. Have 
you lost your mind?” 

“I know you, too, you damnation old witch! That’s 
the name for you! We all know you now for what you 
really are. You go away and you won’t get hurt.” 

“What does this mean, you people?” 

“It means we’ve found out how you have ’chanted 
us. We’re all dying! You have done it!” 

“And even the butter won’t whey on account of 


250 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


your bewitching the churn/’ declared a woman shrilly. 

“Once again I ask you—will you go away?” bawled 
the man. 

“No!” 

“Then you’re going to get what’s coming to you!” 

“You’ll have to stand ’em off with a gun,” warned 
Lang. “There’s no mob so senseless and dangerous as 
a pack of superstitious half-wits.” 

“I have no gun. You must not use yours, my 
friend.” 

The crowd was advancing. The men howled 
threats, working up their courage of mania, and the 
women shrieked, hysterically urging their males to 
catch the wizard and tear him to bits. 

“God o’ mercy, man! You’re not going to stand 
here and let those lunatics have their way with you, 
are you?” 

“They are not to blame. Somebody has lied and 
has set them against me.” 

Lang leaped off the porch and walked toward the 
crowd. Over his shoulder he informed Ashael: “This 
‘turn the cheek’ business may be all right according 
to your code, but it doesn’t fit mine.” 

A man was running, leading the pack. He swung 
a club at Lang, but the lawyer snatched it away, set 
his hands against the man’s breast and pushed him 
back. The others stopped. This stalwart stranger 
had complicated matters for them. 

“You ain’t in this. We don’t want you. It’s him 
we’re after,” yelled the leader. 

“I don’t think you.would know just what to do 
with me, if you did get me,” stated Lang drily. His 
calm fearlessness daunted them more effectually than 
bluster. “What’s the matter with you?” 

“He has witched us.” 


THE LAW 


251 


“You’re all kinds of a liar, man! There’s no such 
thing as witchcraft.” 

“We’re here to get him, and you can’t bluff us back 
with your talk.” 

“In about one minute I’ll stop using talk and lay 
into your gang with a club in each hand. Get away 
from here!” 

They did not retreat, nor did they advance; they 
were huddling closer together, getting up courage by 
contact. 

“Who has put you up to this by lies?” Lang de¬ 
manded, with his court room manner of bullying a 
witness. 

“It wasn’t any lie. She knows! The queen lady of 
the Double T knows!” In this crisis the spokesman 
was desperately trying to win a proselyte who other¬ 
wise might wreck the band’s project. 

Anita had trusted too much to those shallow minds 
from which information could be easily spilled. The 
interference by this bold man had stampeded their 
wits and put their timid prudence to flight. Lang was 
assured by a chorus of voices that they had good 
advice on how to deal with the wizard of Angel Knob; 
they wanted to make this man understand that a 
more important personage than he—whoever he might 
be who withstood them—had told them what to do 
to save themselves from evil. 

The lawyer did not answer them. Rancorous choler 
was in him. Just why he was so furiously angry he 
did not exactly understand. Somehow, the wretches 
were defiling something which had value in his eyes; 
it was something very new—something that was in 
his heart a few moments before when he looked into 
the dancing flames in Ashael’s cabin. 

He threw away his club and struck Tuttle between 


252 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


the eyes and dropped the man; he had been railing 
with profane obscenity. Lang picked up the limp 
form and flung it against a group of other men and 
they ran away. After a few moments, Tuttle stag¬ 
gered to his feet and followed his pack. Lang went 
back to Ashael. 

“Excuse me for desecrating Angel Knob, and going 
against your New Testament ideas! But I reckoned 
a little of the Old Testament stuff was needed,” stated 
the victor. “I don’t remember the texts or the ancient 
parties who were concerned, but I remember some¬ 
thing about using the jawbone of an ass; I used the 
whole animal.” He walked into the camp and Ashael 
followed. “I’ll turn in pretty soon, I reckon,” said 
Lang. “I want to make an early start for-” 

He turned away from Ashael and did not name 
his destination. He sat down in front of the fire and 
resumed his study of the flames. In a hollow off the 
trail of “The Way of the Cross,” the pack gathered 
around Tuttle. 

“That ain’t a man, though he talked like one,” the 
leader stated with decision, excusing his discomfiture. 
“He was ’chanted up by that old hellion and was sicked 
on to me. He was a demon. I smelt brimstone. 
There ain’t nothing left for us but the fire test!” 

“She said not to,” protested a man. 

“If she was here she’d change her mind. She 
wasn’t caklating on a demon being ’chanted up to 
stop us. She don’t want to be euchred. She ordered 
something done. By the blue blazes, it’s going to be 
done, too!” 

“She’s entitled to her money’s worth,” agreed 
another. 

“I have come prepared—that’s the kind of a man 
I am to depend on,” said Tuttle. He dredged his 



THE LAW 


253 


pockets and produced handfuls of matches. “They’re 
from her depot camp,” he chuckled. “I reckon if she 
knowed how they’re going to be used she wouldn’t 
be mad because we stole ’em.” 

“Ain’t a fire resky, with this wind?” 

“It’s going to be a different kind of a fire. I’ve got 
my plans. It’s a witch-test fire. Come along!” 

When they had trod with stealth back among the 
white birches he set all men at work with their knives, 
stripping the bark, the outer, crisp, white integument 
of Ashael’s “angels.” Into the ends of split sticks 
they set great wads of the bark. And when the word 
was given they all lighted the improvised torches. 
Men and women, they began to run in a circle around 
and around the camp, the fires streaming over their 
heads. 

It was a senseless performance, a juvenile prank by 
witless grown-ups with a crack-brain leader who 
entertained some fantastic notion about the efficacy 
of a ring of fire in the case of a witch. 

But the torches, rudely contrived, hastily put to¬ 
gether, dropped petals of flame as the excited car¬ 
riers went leaping about the building. Some petals 
went scaling off on the wings of the wind. Some of 
them alighted in clumps of resinous undergrowth and 
torched the tinder into sudden flame. Some bits 
of the blazing bark, swirling upward on the gusts of 
the gale, lodged in the larger trees—the spruces and 
the hemlocks. 

After a few minutes, all about in the lurid woods, 
there was a noise like the rush of falling waters; the 
sound was the roar of fires streaming up through the 
needles and the tassels of the cones of the black 
growth. From tree to tree the flames leaped. The 
crested tops seemed to explode instead of burn. Such 


254 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


is the dreaded “crown fire” of the North country 
when the flames mount the galloping winds. 

They who had done the mischief ran into the woods; 
they knew fires and the ways of fires; they had had 
practice in the squatter art of burning tracts to form 
blueberry barrens. They dropped their torches and 
the flames set back-fires which raced to join the first 
ranks of the growing conflagration. The fugitives of 
Pugwash were going into the eye of the wind and were 
safe. 

The two men of the camp had become fugitives, 
too. They were forced to flee ahead of the fires— 
they could not pierce the wall of red ruin which lay 
to the southward. The camp was burning before they 
left it; they had used a little time to gather some 
of their possessions. 

“Borestone!” gasped Lang. “We’ll go up there!” 

But the draft of wind in the valley between them 
and the mountain was like that in a chimney flue; 
the flames were roaring and rolling there. 

“I have always depended on ‘The Way of the 
Cross/ ” vouchsafed Ashael. “But we must take an¬ 
other trail.” He set away and Lang hurried at his 
heels. 


CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT 
The Magic of a Voice 


HE Black Dragons had said to the charg¬ 
ing, red-plumed ranks, “You shall not 
pass!” That name, The Black Dragons, 
was long ago given by the woodsmen to 
the serrated, battlemented heights of the 
Border watershed. The ranks of the racing fires 
faltered on the rocky slopes to the south and died 
against the flinty breasts of The Black Dragons. 

On the second night after the torches had made that 
horrid circle about AshaePs camp—after the seeds 
from those torches had been sown on the winds and 
had raised with magical suddenness a crop of chaos 
that was tipped with flowers of the flames—one saw 
only scattered lights in the smoky gloom, stubs of 
trees that were vertical, glowing embers. When the 
eyes gazed forth on the vast tracts where destruction 
had raged, the panorama seemed, in the obscurity, like 
cities dimly lighted. 

The big smoke had rolled over the cliffs of the 
watershed, though the fires had been kept back. 

On the day following the second night of the con¬ 
flagration, the skies were hung with a sombre pall of 
saffron hue and the sun overhead was like a dull-red 
lozenge laid on a yellow screen. 

On the LTslet waters the men who were working 
down the pulp timber drive, on its way to the Canadian 
mills, breathed acrid air and looked over their shoul¬ 
ders toward the south and wondered how much dam- 
255 













256 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


age had been done. They scarcely expected any mes¬ 
senger from out of that hell to report the damage. 

However, near the time when twilight was merg¬ 
ing with the dun light of the day a man did come, 
and his appearance showed that he had been through 
the hell. He came down the river, paddling with a 
broken oar, a voyageur in a leaky bateau which was 
evidently some ancient, condemned craft left to rot on 
the shore. 

The man was blackened and blistered; his eyes were 
closed; the fires had seared them. He paddled only 
feebly—the current of the river was the chief motive 
power in bringing the bateau along. The man was 
crying aloud. But when the rivermen hurried out to 
him, their sweeps forcing along a frothing bateau, 
they learned that he was not making appeals in his 
own behalf; he was incoherently calling for help for 
somebody who was back there in the woods from 
which he had come. 

When the rivermen hailed, and after they caught 
hold of the craft, their brown hands clinging to the 
thwarts, he addressed men whom he could not see 
but whose voices gave him a new impulse to summon 
aid for the one who was lost. The rivermen could not 
understand very well because he kept contradicting 
himself in his delirium. He said a good old man had 
run away into the fires so he might not be a burden to 
the younger man who had a chance to escape. 

He said the good old man must be alive, because 
God would not allow a man like him to die in fires set 
by lunatics and renegades. But then the stranger 
went on to say that the old man had been burned in 
the flames because he would not be the cause of sac¬ 
rificing another man. He had carried the old man on 
his shoulders; then the old man would not allow him- 


THE MAGIC OF A VOICE 


257 


self to be carried any longer! The boss of the river- 
men tapped his forehead and shook his head when he 
swapped glances with his crew. 

“Whoever is up yon in the smoke, he is still there, 
what’s left of him. This man must be taken to the 
village of Boisvert.” 

They lied to the stranger when they said they would 
send for the old man. But they did not lie to them¬ 
selves when they averred in low tones that there was 
no need of searching for anybody who had been left 
yonder. 

The stranger threw away the broken oar after they 
had promised to send aid. When they lifted him into 
their bateau he lay limply on the wool jackets which 
they spread for him; he was motionless and silent. 
While the bateau swept on down the river and through 
the smoky twilight and into the night which followed 
the twilight, the man gave no sign of life. Every 
little while the boss kneeled and put his ear to the 
stranger’s breast and listened for heart-beats. Each 
time he looked up and nodded encouragingly to his 
rowers. 

Those rivermen made up a part of the crew hand¬ 
ling the rear of the pulp-wood drive—and they had 
been located far up the L’Islet waters. It was morn¬ 
ing before they came to the settlement of Boisvert. 

The boss had dipped water in his palms as the 
bateau drove on and had bathed the face of the un¬ 
conscious man and had cleared away the soot and 
grime as best he could. But the cruelly seared eyes 
he did not dare to touch. 

“It’s for Doctor Lebel—that job!” he told his men. 
“One of you must go on to St. Beauce and bring 
Doctor Lebel.” 

The rivermen were not wondering because the boss 


258 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


had taken all this trouble for a stricken stranger and 
was willing to go to more pains. On the L’Islet 
waters they all called him “Generous Jock.” And 
the house of Jock Duncan at Boisvert, an open house 
for all who came and went along the watery thorough¬ 
fare, had a weatherstained board above its door with 
letters carved deeply. It was a tribute to Jock Duncan, 
though Duncan shook his head and grinned disparag¬ 
ingly when old Dominie MacMath nailed up the board 
which he had patiently carved in the period of his 
recovery from a broken leg; Duncan had taken in 
the aged lay preacher who had suffered injury on a 
tour among the camps. This was the verse on the 
board: 

“But deep this truth impressed my mind: 

Thro’ all His works abroad, 

The heart benevolent and kind 
The most resembles God.” 

“I’m leaving it where the dominie nailed it,” Duncan 
was wont to explain, “for it’s a bit verse frae Bobby 
Bur-rns, and I’d no lay my rough paw on any o’ 
Bobby’s jingle.” 

Duncan led the way when the men bore the stranger 
from the bateau to the door where the verse pro¬ 
claimed the character of the house’s hospitality. “It 
comes at a good time,” he said. “Mavis has no call 
to be busy with the village bairns, for the school is 
closed. And she aye must needs tend and do for 
somebody.” 

He called to his daughter before he reached the 
door. “I’m bringing one of our ain kind, lass. For 
he wouldna let the clutch of his sufferings close his 
throat or make him lose the hold on his oar till he 
told what he had come to tell—of the other man he 


THE MAGIC OF A VOICE 


259 


tried hard to save and couldna. So, be good to him. 
He has earned it!” 

Therefore, John Lang, who had been lodged in the 
house of Jock Duncan of Boisvert, proceeded to col¬ 
lect what Duncan considered had been earned. But 
Lang did not know he was collecting. He did not 
revive even to know his own identity for days. He 
knew not night from day, for he was in a darkened 
room, his eyes bandaged by the skilful ministrations 
of Doctor Lebel from St. Beauce. 

Just how a man whose lungs had been shrivelled 
by the fires and choked by the smoke, whose eyes were 
blinded and whose throat was scorched within and 
without, had been able to keep on so persistently till 
he had made known to men the peril of another man, 
was a source of marvel to the doctor, and he made 
that astonishment known to Duncan. And the more 
the doctor wondered, the more was Duncan convinced 
that his first judgment in regard to the stranger was 
justified. 

“He must be one o’ my ain sort—and it’s good to 
gi’e hand o’ help to such. I’d like to know his name 
—but there’s no hurry. Dumb and blind ye say he’ll 
be for many a day? Oh, well! I’ll shift the name o’ 
Generous Jock to him. I’m tired of carrying it, and 
he’s welcome to its use.” 

After a long time, after days of which he did not 
know the lapse, John Lang became conscious of a 
voice. It was faint and far away, it seemed, at first; 
his ears had suffered from the flames and his dulled 
hearing came back to him slowly. It was a girl’s 
voice. After he began to hear it more plainly he 
was aware, for his own comfort, that he was back in 
a safe world. 

He had been battling with the phantasmagoria of 


260 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


flames—flames which were leaping and limitless. He 
had fought through them—he had fled from before 
them. He was everlastingly struggling with a burden 
which resisted his efforts. He tried to drag along an 
old man who had urged him to go on and make the 
most of the years that were still ahead of a young 
man. 

At first, in the vagaries of his delirium, the distant 
voice—the girl’s voice—seemed to be calling to him 
to come forth, away from the torturing fires. It was 
the call of youth, summoning the spirit of youth. So, 
he turned his back on the flames and answered the 
call of the voice. He was escaping from the torture— 
it was the beginning of his convalescence. 

Day by day he depended on the voice to guide him, 
because his way was still beset by visionary obstacles, 
as if by the smouldering stumps flanking him on that 
day when he staggered up the mountain side and 
groped his way to the L’Islet waters. 

He seemed to come into clearer air where he could 
see the cool purple rim of the hills—the boundary 
which had always stimulated his yearning to go on 
and seek. He trusted in the voice. He waited for it 
—he loved it when he heard it. So gradually did the 
twilight of bewilderment develop into the dawn of 
reality, he scarcely knew when it was he came to 
realize that the voice of the girl, who had tenderly 
nursed him, was not merely a sound which was a 
part of his troubled visions. 

Even when he had begun to stammer words for the 
first time, asking anxious questions, he made no 
attempt to learn her identity. The voice sufficed for 
his comfort. Other women had approached him by 
way of his eyes; he remembered Reba Donworth 
swinging along the boulevard—he recollected how 


THE MAGIC OF A VOICE 261 

Anita Trask had looked when her old husband dis¬ 
closed the tableau by pulling aside the portiere. 

Now his eyes were bandaged and his ears gave him 
uncertain evidence still—but that voice went straight 
to his heart. Sometimes when he was restless, the 
voice read the verses of Bobby Burns, sympathetically 
and with all the delightful characterization of the dia¬ 
lect. Sometimes the voice crooned the Scottish songs. 
The voice comforted him, from time to time, reassured 
him, encouraged him. It told him he would surely 
see again when Doctor Lebel considered it advisable to 
take the bandages away. 

Then there came a day when strong arms helped 
him out of the room where he had been lodged so long, 
the precious voice directing the helpers and urging 
them to be tender and careful. 

He was in the open. He heard the mellow murmur 
of a river’s current and sniffed the odor of summer’s 
flowers. 

They seated him in a big chair and he listened to 
the rustle of leaves above his head. In the dark room 
he had felt a listless indifference about the lapse of 
time. Now he asked questions and the girl with the 
blessed voice of comfort told him it was the last week 
of June. She indulged his awakened curiosity and 
explained how he had been brought down the river out 
of the smoke of the flaming forest. 

A little hand was laid upon his where it rested on 
the arm of the chair. He heard another voice, then. 
“I have sat almost every day beside your bed, sir, 
when my sister could not be there all the time. I have 
given to you water and your medicine.” 

“It makes me very sad to know you have stayed 
in that dark room for my sake.” 

“But it has made me happy, sir, because there are 


262 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


so few things I can do to help anybody. I have to 
sit in my wheel chair all the time, just as you do now. 
I am twelve years old. I have sat five years in my 
chair. But it’s not so very bad when one can see!” 
Her voice was cheery. “The doctor will take the 
cloth off your eyes some day. Then I’ll bring my 
games, and you and I can play them, and we shall not 
mind much because we have to sit in our chairs.” 

Under the bandage he felt the healing tears moisten 
the eyes which the flames had seared. “I don’t know 
much about what I’ve said or done since I have been 
in the dark room. I hope I’ve seemed grateful, all 
the time. Before I was brought here I did not know 
there was so much unselfish generosity in the world. 
My name doesn’t matter now. Names mean nothing— 
I’m glad you have not told me yours. It will be time 
to know such things when I can stand up like a 
man in front of you both and look into your eyes.” 

“You must not trouble your thoughts till that time 
comes,” said the voice of the elder sister. “Think 
only this—it is June, and you can come out here every 
day when it’s fair and can listen to the river and 
catch the scents of the flowers; they are all about you, 
because I tend them and love them. And it won’t be 
long before you can see them and look at the fields in 
the sunshine. Now, I must go into the house and 
attend to the baking.” 

The child, meekly waiting for a hint that he desired 
any talk, broke a silence which had been prolonged. 
“You’d rather think your thoughts than listen to me! 
Isn’t that so, sir?” 

“I have had too much time for thinking, my dear!” 

He was wondering why his curiosity was continuing 
to sleep, as he realized it did. He had asked no ques¬ 
tions about them, the Samaritans who harbored him. 


THE MAGIC OF A VOICE 


263 


He was conscious of a strange reluctance about digging 
for facts—his investigator nature was numbed. The 
previous realities had been so bitter that he encouraged 
this new state of mind—prolonging it as a comforting 
dream. Not only did he refrain from asking the name 
of this family which had taken him in—he was acutely 
unwilling to know it just then, and he was grateful 
because they, too, seemed to consider names as of 
small moment—humoring his notion. 

Mentally, he was regarding the situation as a locked 
casket, of which he held the key. He was dreading 
to expose the hope which was hidden away. He did 
not insult his sagacity by pretending that he could 
not guess—but it was a comfort to nurse a childish 
vagary in his weakness. He was holding to the dream 
until the claim of reality became too insistent to be 
denied. 

He swept his hand in a slow gesture in front of his 
face, directing his companion’s attention. “As you 
see it—what’s out there? Please tell me how it 
looks.” 

The child chattered joyfully, grateful for the com¬ 
mission entrusted to her. She was eyes for the man 
who sat beside her. She described all that could be 
seen from where they sat—the river, the logs rolling 
along its flood, the broad tillage fields and the little 
white houses. 

“It’s too bad your sister must stay indoors on such 
a beautiful day,” he ventured; he was hoping the 
child would assure him that the stay would not be for 
long. “And it’s too bad because she has to work at 
baking when it’s warm.” 

“Oh, she only keeps an eye on old Joan and the 
other girl—and sister makes just the pies because it’s 
fun for her. Mamma used to make the pies before she 


264 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


went away to heaven, and my sister is mamma of our 
house now. And she teaches our school.” 

Lang rested his head on the back of his chair. The 
little girl patted his hand. 

“Maybe you’d like to go to sleep. I’ll hush my 
tongue, sir.” 

“No, no!” he protested. “Your dear tongue is help¬ 
ing me so much, and I’m not missing my eyes just now. 
Tell me more, please!” 

“I think I’ve told you all about everything in sight. 
Oh, here comes Blind Lebaude—he’s tapping past with 
his stick. He’s a jolly man. Hey, Jules Lebaude!” 
she called. “You must tell this gentleman who is 
just now the same as you are, how it’s not so very bad 
to be without eyes. He’d like to be made jolly, as you 
are all the day long!” 

The sightless man who sat in the big chair heard a 
very jovial chuckle. “Mais, non! she was not so very 
fonny dat day when de grin’ stone she bus’ on me at 
de meel. I grin’ de axe on de power-stone, m’sieu’! 
Sometime, dem stone she bus’. Oui! So, I’m blind. 
But I don’ stay sad. I can make fon for maself. I 
have one lee tie farm. I have de wires all stretch to 
hen pen, pig house—to my barn—and I go along so 
sweef’ about ma work, by put ma hand on de wire. 
And dey come pas’ and la’f and call me de ’lectric car 
on de trolley, eh! So, I la’f and I don’ care.” 

Then the cane tapped on its way. 

“So, you see, even if you have to sit on the chair all 
the time, or if you can’t look at the sun and the flowers, 
there’s always something left for fun if you’ll make up 
your mind to be happy,” said the little girl. “Now, 
let’s see what else there is in sight to tell about! Oh, 
there’s my own self, right here! Well, you’ll know 


THE MAGIC OF A VOICE 


265 


the color of my hair when I sing you the bit of song 
that papa Jock jokes me with. 

“ ‘Lassie wi’ the lint-white locks, 

Bonnie lassie, artless lassie, 

Wilt thou wi’ me tent the flocks, 

Wilt thou be my dearie, O?’ ” 

While she was laughing merrily after her little song, 
he reached in her direction and patted her locks. 

“But I don’t think I’m really very good looking,” 
she went on. “Papa Jock says he likes my mouth 
because it’s big like his. He says it’s a good sign of 
generosity. That’s his nickname all along the river— 
‘Generous Jock’.” 

“I’m sure it belongs by rights to your father.” 

“Oh, yes!” she agreed serenely. “It fits him. But 
now I must tell you how my sister looks. She is-” 

“Hush!” he warned. “I think I hear her coming.” 

“No. She isn’t anywhere in sight.” 

“Please! Please, dear child!” he urged. “Don’t 
tell me how she looks—not now! It’s a whim. Sick 
men have queer whims, don’t they? I’m—I’m guess¬ 
ing how she looks. You enjoy working out riddles, 
don’t you? Well, I’m childish right now—and it’s 
like a sort of a riddle—guessing how she looks. It 
takes up my mind. I don’t want the answer right 
now.” 

“Then you must be thinking about my sister a whole 
lot,” she said, surprise in her tone. 

“Yes!” said John Lang meekly. He had enshrined 
a voice—he had pictured an image, and for the time 
being he was keeping the shrine sacred from invasion 
by a human visage because that face might not be the 
counterpart of the one which had been glorified by 
his dreaming hopes. 



CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE 
With the Eyes of A Man 


OHN LANG broke his resolve regarding 
anonymity. He talked about himself to 
the girl of Boisvert before the bandages 
were off his eyes. In his thoughts, while 
he talked, he accused himself of weakness 
and folly. He knew he ought to wait till he was hale 
and strong, finding his poise with the aid of honest 
eyesight. But he succumbed to the usual temptation 
which assails a sick man in the presence of a nurse 
who is tender and patient. He reached out for under¬ 
standing, womanly sympathy. He even told her about 
Reba Donworth. 

Somehow, he wanted this girl of the North to feel 
that he was loyal and dependable in his affections. As 
he acknowledged to himself, his impulses were of a 
mixed quality, but he desired to have his listener 
know about the faults which had turned Reba from 
him. It was in his thoughts that this girl was the one 
of all others who might be able to reassure him. 

“My vanity, my pride, my selfishness, my lack of 
real and understanding tenderness!” This was his 
theme. Daily he brought the matter up and dwelt 
upon the subject of repentance. He was finding inex¬ 
pressible comfort in her reiterated belief that he had 
been cleansed of those errors. 

Then he was troubled because he could not prove 
his new spirit by acts, not merely by his protestations. 
He fell to wondering what he could do, in the way of 
that proof. His doubts in regard to them, his anxiety 
266 













WITH THE EYES OF A MAN 267 


to perform, were the natural developments of a sick 
man’s vague protests against hampering conditions and 
of his restlessness as convalescence progressed. 

“It will be easy for you to show it by some act, 
because'now you have die will to perform,” the con¬ 
soling voice had assured him, over and over. “The 
way will present itself. God always puts the means 
within the reach of those who simply and honestly 
want to show goodness.” 

“And humility!” he urged. 

“Yes! Otherwise, the show is all for parade. Some 
way will be provided, and then she will know!” 

“Best of all, I, myself, will know!” he added soul- 
fully. 

Through long days, under the rustling leaves, he 
talked with the child, also. Her cheerful patience 
touched his heart. The doctors had told her father 
nothing could be done to cure her of the paralysis 
which fettered her feet. She and Lang had discussed 
often the strange old man who had died in the flaming 
woods. 

“I wish I might have seen him,” the child confessed. 
“I have heard about other ‘charmer men’ of the woods 
—the rivermen have told me. I am good, I hope. I 
trust in God’s goodness. Do you believe the old 
man could have made me well, so I could walk? If 
I could only stand and walk a little, I would be 
happier. I’d never care, even if I couldn’t run about 
like a child. Are there such blessings as being healed 
without doctors—just because God wants you to be 
well?” 

“I’m afraid I don’t know very much about it or 
how to talk to you, my child. I wish now I had 
studied that matter instead of wasting so much study 
on other things. But I do believe God wants every- 


268 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


body to be well. Strange cures are made in the way of 
healing—I do know that!” 

“A riverman told me he was once at the great church 
of Beaupre, on the Feast Day of Sainte Anne—that’s 
in July, the twenty-sixth day.” She dwelt upon the 
date wistfully. “He said while the procession was mov¬ 
ing and the chimes were ringing and the people were 
singing the chant to good Sainte Anne, he heard a 
child scream very loud and say, T can walk!’ And a 
little girl got out of her wheel chair there in the yard 
in front of the church, where all the people were, and 
she walked off. The riverman said he got down on 
his knees with the rest of the people and cried—and 
he said he had never been on his knees before like 
that because he was so wicked. I’m afraid he was 
—I have heard him swear.” 

“Yes, there are strange things in this world,” mur¬ 
mured Lang. Previously he would have found his 
statement banal. Now his reverent tone blessed the 
thought. He pondered for some time. 

“I used to be very curt and cross, my child, when 
folks told me there were such things. But I don’t 
have as much faith in my own notions these days as 
I used to have. I want to listen with respect to what 
other folks say and to believe in all good things which 
happen to other folks. The shrine you speak of is 
not so very far from here, is it?” 

Her tone had revealed to him how carefully she 
had gleaned information and how, in her hopes, she 
had treasured all she had learned. 

“After one goes down the valley of the Chaudiere 
it’s not so very far, sir,” she answered with breathless 
eagerness. “And the road is broad and smooth—they 
call it The King’s Highway. And one goes to a 
place called Levis and there’s a ferry across to the 


WITH THE EYES OF A MAN 269 


city of Quebec and then it’s twenty-one miles down to 
the church of Sainte Anne. 

“Oh, I have asked so many questions, sir! It seems 
as if I can shut my eyes and see the broad road and 
all the white houses, and then I come to the place 
where the church rises so grand! And there’s the 
statue of the good saint in the courtyard! She holds 
her little grandson, Jesus, in her arms. And in the 
church there’s another great statue of her, and they 
say she looks down, very sweet and tender, on the sick 
folks and the cripples who come and kneel and ask 
for help. And there’s a bit of bone from her wrist 
—and it cures folks!” 

She paused, and he could determine from her voice, 
though it was brave, how very near to tears she was. 

“Have you asked your father to take you there, 
child?” 

“No! No!” He heard the indrawn breath of 
apprehensiveness. 

“But why not?” 

“He’s a Presbyterian, sir! He’s Scotch!” There 
was no reproach in the child’s tone. She gave her 
statement as if it were a cogent, final, absolute and 
unanswerable explanation. 

Lang’s thoughts went back to what Ashael had 
said in the court room on the day when he had been 
called to the stand as a witness. Men did insist on 
putting tags upon God’s mysterious bounty! Men 
in the quarrels of human belief insisted on choosing 
the channels of their own blessings and, if those chan¬ 
nels were dry, scornfully refused to partake of the 
overflow of another channel to which other men had 
given a specific name! 

He wanted to burst out into protests against mak¬ 
ing the infinite God a creature of creeds, even though 


270 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


he had only a child for an auditor; but he respected 
this child’s simple faith in a goodness which for her 
was still undefined. Especially was he unwilling to 
disturb her deference to a father’s settled opinions. 

But an idea was born in John Lang. He set his 
thoughts to the elaboration of that idea as day suc¬ 
ceeded day. Sometimes he was afraid he was putting 
his own affairs ahead of the child’s in the matter; 
for his own case became inextricably involved with the 
child’s as he proceeded with his plans. 

One day the elder sister gave him a bit of news; 
she had served as his information-monger in regard to 
the little happenings of the settlement of Boisvert. 
She said some of the folks were going to make the 
pilgrimage to Sainte Anne de Beaupre for the great 
Feast Day. They were going in their carts and their 
buckboards to the Chaudiere valley and down the 
broad highway. There were the men, wives and chil¬ 
dren of the families of Etienne Laurendeau, of Phillipe 
Montreuil, of Maxime Filteau and of Ubalde Duplisse. 

“Are all of them sick?” 

“Oh, no! They are going for the trip, to see the 
sights, to ask the blessing and to bring back the holy 
water from the fountain after a father has blessed 
the bottles they fill.” 

“Do you believe persons have been healed at that 
shrine?” 

“I only know what I have been told. There are 
many thousands who go there, as pilgrims, each year, 
and I have talked with folks who say they have seen 
sick people made well.” 

“They call themselves pilgrims—and they ride in 
trains and carriages and motor cars,” he burst forth 
with some bitterness. “Away back in the old days of 
the world there were real pilgrims—and they walked, 


WITH THE EYES OF A MAN 271 


and then they received their blessings. In these times, 
it’s all show and mock with most folks. They haven’t 
the true and humble spirit to be real pilgrims. If 
they really knew how to ask for blessings, in all hu¬ 
mility, they’d get them.” He was declaring with as 
much sincerity as Ashael had shown! 

Later, in other talks, he referred to the matter. 
He indicated how much it occupied his thoughts. 

Then there came the day which brought Doctor 
Lebel for the final and the crucial visit. The doctor, 
in the darkened room, on his other calls, had tested 
Lang’s eyes to an extent which assured them both 
that the recovery was sure, though it had been 
slow. 

Therefore, when the bandages were taken off for 
the last time, John Lang saw! It was in the twilight! 
He was seated in the big chair under the rustling 
leaves, his head on the back of the chair, and he looked 
up into the foliage, a soothing, comforting canopy 
ruffled by the evening breeze. 

Jock Duncan was at home these days. The rear 
of the drive was down. 

“Your hand, man!” he cried, reaching for Lang’s. 
“Gi’e me your honest grip! I’m greeting ye as ye 
come frae the mouth o’ the covered bridge! A sunlit 
way for ye frae noo on!” 

Lang looked slowly around. He was not hearing the 
voice he longed to hear. He saw nothing but a girl’s 
wide and luminous eyes at first, so it seemed to him. 
His gaze did not stray from the eyes. They belonged 
with the voice. They were big and honest and sooth¬ 
ingly, restfully blue, like the hue of the sky seen 
through the leaves above his head. Happy tears filled 
her eyes but did not dim them. 

Lang rose slowly. He had regained his strength 


272 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


of body for he had been walking for many days, 
guided by her hand. 

“He would never let me tell him about your looks, 
sister Mavis,” cried Jessie, laughing and sobbing with 
a touch of a child’s nervous hysteria in a moment of 
crisis. “I wanted to break the news of how homely 
you are.” 

At that prod John Lang forgot reserve, tactfulness 
and the delicacy of conventionality. He declared with 
a childishness that quite matched Jessie’s emotion of 
the moment, “Hush, child! Your sister is the hand¬ 
somest girl I have ever seen!” 

Jock Duncan’s shouts of laughter broke the tension 
of the little party and helped Mavis to control her 
swift confusion. 

“It’s what I’d always say to your mither, lass, my 
first day out frae the choppings in the spring! But 
she was ne’er unco set up by any such silliness— 
so she aye ca’ed it!” 

Lang walked to Mavis, his hands outstretched, and 
she took them in her warm clasp. 

“Did you expect I would be astonished when I 
opened my eyes and saw your face?” he asked, and 
answered the question with earnest conviction. “No, 
I’m sure you understand me better! I have been 
dwelling with the voice which called me back from the 
dark places. The dream has been glorious—I hated 
to break in on it till I could open my eyes on reality. 
I was sure what the reality would be. I’m not trying 
to remember when the revelation came to me that you 
were Mavis Duncan. To linger along with the make- 
believe has been a sick man’s whim, I suppose, but I 
hope you do not think it was silly.” In her reply she 
was as earnest as he had been. 

“I have been sharing the same whim with you. 


WITH THE EYES OF A MAN 273 


Yes, and Jessie and my father have helped me, because 
I coaxed them.” 

Though she had been cordial in the joy of beholding 
him restored, he detected in her manner and expres¬ 
sion something that was a mixture of embarrassment 
and reserve; she was trying to take her hands from 
his grasp. 

“I beg you to forgive my—my explosion a few 
minutes ago. It was before I thought how it—how I 
would sound, and-” 

“Man, don’t spoil a compliment, even if it did 
somewhat o’er-praise my lassie,” rebuked Duncan, 
laughing. 

“I didn’t intend—I stick to what I said—I—I-” 

He released her hands and joined with her in the 
laughter which echoed Duncan’s robust efforts in that 
line. “I think I won’t try to juggle any more words 
just now—not even the words with which to thank 
you for what you have done through all the long days. 
I don’t know just what to do with words, it seems!” 

“Nor would I know what to do with them if you 
should give them to me.” Her restraint in tone and 
manner was more marked and chilled his ardor. 

He wished he had the courage to ask her to walk 
with him along the river bank. The reflection that 
he lacked such courage in her case suggested that he 
would do well to tone up a faltering spirit by a little 
exercise of it in another quarter. 

He turned to Duncan. “Will you take a short walk 
with me along the river, sir? I want to have a talk 
with you.” 

They were a long time away from the house. Mavis 
and Jessie sat without speaking and watched the moon 
come up. It was broad and white in a tranquil sky. 
Silhouetted against the quivering pathway which the 




274 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


moon laid across the water, Duncan and Lang walked 
up the slope from the river, returning. 

“Lassies, we’ve had a long, long talk, John Lang 
and I,” said the father mildly. “I might say it's been 
about beliefs, pro and con. But the argument is ended 
without either of us being the wiser! Only agreeing, 
the two of us, with the spirit o’ the gude friends, that 
there are many things beyond the ken o’ mortal man. 
So, we’ll say nowt about the arguments. We agreed 
on anither matter—and it’s for me, as master o’ my 
house, to speak of it.” He drew a long breath—a 
breath of resignation. 

“John Lang tells me he has pleaded mony a case in 
court, but he has given no compliment to himsel’. He 
needs not to do so. I compliment him!” He bowed 
to Lang who stood at a respectful distance from the 
family group, listening. 

“In due season, so we may be there on the day o’ 
the Great Festival, we start for Sainte Anne de Beau- 
pre. And if God or any of His saints bend down 
closer that day, so they may hear the prayer of my 
puir bairnie, here, I care nowt whether it’s in the yard 
o’ papistry or in the yard o’ the true kirk. I shall bless 
the Father o’ the wor-rld for the mercies He may see 
fit to grant.” 

There was a long silence there under the moon. 
Then the child began to sob softly. Her father went 
quickly to her, kneeled beside her wheel chair and 
took the head with the lint-white locks upon his shoul¬ 
der. He talked to her comfortingly in low tones. 

When Mavis moved toward John Lang he hurried 
to meet her. 

“It has been one of my dreams,” she whispered. “I 
had heard of the others—I had hoped—but I wasn’t 

p 


sure- 



WITH THE EYES OF A MAN 275 


“None of us are sure/’ he returned when she hesi¬ 
tated. “We can only hope.” 

“It’s a long road—it’s rough for a part of the way.” 
Her motherly solicitude for the child was stirring. 
“But we must arrange, somehow, to make the wagon 
comfortable for Jessie—and there are many villages 
so we need not hurry.” 

“We need not hurry,” he assured her. “But as for 
the wagon! I have been giving this matter long 
thought. It was not sudden impulse when I asked 
your father to go with me for a talk. I had made 
some plans for myself. I know there are bicycles 
in the village. I shall buy some wheels. The child 
is wonted to the chair. She can be very comfortable 
in it if it is pushed with care over the rough places.” 

“You surely don’t mean that you-” 

“I have begged the privilege from your father. It 
is more than a privilege. It is for the peace of my 
own soul. Understand me, Mavis!” In the eagerness 
of his appeal he blurted her Christian name. “It’s not 
to parade my humility or to crucify my vanity. When 
I can say so much, and can be so absolutely honest in 
saying it, I feel I am well along in my cure of self. 
But, so it seems to me, after I have gone on foot, in the 
dust of the highway, being of real service to an inno¬ 
cent child in making the way smooth for her, I can 
look up to God and plead her cause and mine with 
a better understanding of the Law—the Great Law 
which I’m only beginning to grasp and know for my 
good. I hope you don’t think it’s a whim! ” 

“No!” she assured him. “It’s what you have been 
wanting to show by act instead of word—it’s your 
proof!” 

That night, in her chamber, the daughter of “Gen¬ 
erous Jock” Duncan made a test of her own gener- 



276 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


osity; the spirit of sacrifice was truly dominating the 
household in those days! Even a Scotch Presbyterian 
had put aside the tenets of his creed! 

The moonlight flooded a table set close beside her 
window—it was light enough to serve Mavis. 

She wrote a letter to Reba Donworth. The girl of 
Boisvert told the girl of the city that the man who 
would be at Sainte Anne de Beaupre on the twenty- 
sixth day of July would be worthy of all her love, 
after having been through the fires of penitence and 
sacrifice. She urged Reba to go to Sainte Anne. She 
declared that John Lang deserved such a reward— 
a blessing in answer to the appeal from his contrite 
spirit. 

Mavis waited for a time before she sealed the 
envelope. She was resolving to lay away forever a 
sacred love and with it all unworthy regrets for that 
love. She was determined to put into the act of sealing 
this letter her surrender of a beautiful dream—she 
had never acknowledged that she hoped for an actu¬ 
ality! 

Sitting there in the wan light she endured her Geth- 
semane! Then she drew her finger across her tear- 
wet cheek and moistened the edge of the flap and 
held her hand closely pressed there for many minutes. 

Some letters are sealed with a kiss; that letter was 
sealed with the tears of renunciation. The act was 
generosity, purely conceived, honestly uncalculated, 
with no after-thought of the reward promised by 
Divine Justice to those who cast bread upon the 
waters. 


CHAPTER THIRTY 

The Revelation of a Dream 

IS eyes open, face to face with duty and the 
world, dealing once more with the verities, 
Lang was harassed by a gnawing desire 
to know what impelling motive had 
brought Mavis to his office to plead for 
the cause of Andrew MacMurray. 

He had been assured by both of them that there 
was a deeper reason than relationship. She had re¬ 
fused to admit him to her confidence when she made 
her call on him; he had deferred to her then, unable 
to urge more than the vague claim of curiosity and 
short acquaintance. In his new state of mind he 
craved to be admitted to the plane of closer friend¬ 
ship. In the flood of his gratitude he both feared and 
yearned. What had his refusal wrought for her injury? 
He shrank from knowing. However, if he did know 
he might be able to repair his fault. 

Daily, as he became more sure of himself, grap¬ 
pling the problems of the world of light into which 
he had emerged, he sought information from her, 
awkwardly and tentatively. She did not respond to 
his hints. When he was more direct she avoided his 
questions. At last he besought her to tell him. 

It was the evening before the morn of their pro¬ 
jected pilgrimage. All the preparations had been made. 
He had wheeled Jessie about the village in the after¬ 
noon, happy as a boy when he found how his wheeled 
contrivance ensured her comfort. He made it con¬ 
stantly manifest how much his heart was set on the 
277 














278 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


expedition. Mavis referred falteringly to this new, 
buoyant mood of his when she gave signs that she was 
weakening under his insistent appeals. 

“I’m like a child waiting for Christmas dawn—I’m 
expecting a wonderful gift,” he told her with fervor. 
“I’m going down on my knees tonight and pray for 
sunshine.” 

“If I tell you what I did not intend to confess it 
will not seem now like an appeal to your generosity— 
for I know you are sincere in this plan which is all 
your own. But to tell you what was only a dream—” 
She hesitated. 

“Remember — I’m very tender on the point of 
dreams!” 

“I came back to my sane senses in your office. I saw 
my folly; you recollect. But you encourage me to speak 
out about my dream because you have now volun¬ 
teered in a service which was a part of what I dreamed 
months ago in the city. We wanted to make Jessie 
well again.” She caught her breath. “You can under¬ 
stand now, when you know her so well, how our sor¬ 
row for her made other matters seem small. And even 
the mayoralty of a city! I look back and wonder 
because I was so bold! So foolish, even! It’s hard 
to tell you! But living here in the little circle of this 

home—and seeing her-” She choked and was 

silent. 

“I have lived here in the little home—I know now! ” 

His answer was pregnant suggestion of his under¬ 
standing sympathy and she went on with more confi¬ 
dence. “I came home from my school in Montreal 
when Jessie became ill. My father and I—and Andy 
—we gave all we had for the sake of having Jessie 
well again. Think! The most of her life ahead of 
her—and a prisoner in a chair!” A sob choked her 



THE REVELATION OF A DREAM 279 


and she turned away from his sympathetic gaze. She 
strove with her mingled emotions when she went on 
with her confession. 

“We took her here and there to the best doctors, 
not counting the cost. I felt I might earn money with 
my voice—Andy thought so, and that’s why I was 
studying in the city. I was desperate enough to leave 
Jessie to be cared for by others—she understood and 
was happy while I was away. The truth was, she had 
lost all hope for herself. She had suffered bitterly 
because I had given up my ambitions—she pretended 
she wanted me to go away and earn money for her 
sake. You can realize how such a pretense of selfish¬ 
ness tortured that honest child!” 

In order to be safely distant from Jessie’s quick 
ears, Mavis and Lang were walking to and fro along 
the river’s sands which the summer’s drought had 
left broad and white and firm. She stopped and 
faced him. 

“If we were now in the city I could never confess 
to you. The city is so great, and the affairs of this 
one and that seem so small. But up here”—she put 
out her arms in a gesture which spoke for her more 
eloquently than words. 

He turned from the brooding peace of river and 
fields and looked at the little home whose problem in 
the person of one poor little girl had dwarfed other 
affairs in his own case. 

“You have seen!” In her simple, wistful declara¬ 
tion there was poignant suggestion for him in his new 
enlightenment. “I’ll say nothing to you about my 
cousin’s ambition to be mayor. Of course, he had his 
personal reasons from the man’s standpoint. But 
he did sympathize with my dream. I had read so 
much about the great surgeon in Europe who per- 


280 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


formed such miracles. It was hinted he might come 
over the sea to this land, but it was said only those of 
power and influence could interest him. How could 
poor Jock Duncan’s daughter hope for a hearing? 
But the foster sister of the mayor of a great city— 
you see now, sir!” she owned plaintively, shrinking 
as if she feared his comment on this amazing hope of 
hers. “A wise man has advised us to hitch our wagon 
to a star—but ours was such a frail little wagon—and 
the star was so high! It was only a girl’s folly—but 
now I have told you!” 

“If money and influence can prevail even at this 
late day-” 

She hastened to forestall his repentant offer. “While 
you were very ill—weeks ago—the newspapers re¬ 
ported the death of the great surgeon. Oh, it was 
only my dream, sir!” 

“But it might have been realized!” he insisted. He 
regarded her gravely, with such intentness that she 
avoided his stare. He went on, earnestly sympathetic, 
as frankly repentant, as if his fault had been calcu¬ 
lated by him. 

“I stepped between you and a dear hope—I did 
it blindly, of course, but none the less it was done. 
There was a chance for your sister to find her life 
more worth the living except for me! You took me 
in and nursed me back into a life that is now worth 
living! I have been thanking God for these eyes 
restored to me. I’m now repeating all my thanks 
because my eyes enable me to see you, my living lesson 
of unselfishness.” 

When he stepped toward her his fervor alarmed 
her and she retreated. 

“No, no! Don’t misjudge me. It’s only this I 
want to do!” He dropped on one knee, took her hand 



THE REVELATION OF A DREAM 281 


and kissed it. “Please understand! I’m venerating 
unselfishness, you know. I need visible symbols, as 
a child does in its kindergarten lessons. Be patient 
with me.” 

He obeyed the slight lift of her hand and rose to 
his feet. 

“The stars promise a fair tomorrow,” she said, 
visibly embarrassed by his impulsive act, seeking to 
change the subject. 

“Yes—it’s as far as I dare look ahead—to tomor¬ 
row! My eyes are still dim, you know!” he faltered. 
“But the stars are bright!” 

There was pathos in his tone, there was a strange 
wonderment in his expression when he looked up at 
the heavens. 

She took advantage of his preoccupation and started 
on her way toward the house. He overtook her a 
few moments later, but there was no more conversation 
between them. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE 
The Man on the Broad Highway 



EMBER MATHISON banged into the som¬ 
nolent noon hush of the Talisman Club 
on a July day. The few members who 
were lounging in the club found Mr. 
Mathison’s irruption startling; he was as 
noisy as a dog with a tin can tied to its tail. 

Mr. Mathison brought a couple of sensation-tin-cans. 
One was visible in his hand. The other was a piece 
of news hidden in his noddle. The article in his hand 
was an interestingly sagging leather bag. The con¬ 
vivial manner displayed by Mr. Mathison suggested 
the nature of the contents of the bag—but Member 
Mathison proceeded to leave nothing to the imagi¬ 
nation. 

“Come along, boys! All up for the buffet! IVe 
got a whale of an excuse for buying drinks! I’ll tell 
you in a minute what the excuse is. Come along— 
it’s right from good old Quebec, and fresh across the 
Border!” He shook the bag at them. “Whisky is 
food! Have a lunch on me!” 

Member Mathison was just in from a motor trip; 
he wore dust coat, cap and goggles. He was followed 
to the buffet by a fairly representative delegation of 
the club members who were present. 

On the way, Mr. Mathison chatted. “If Benedict 
Arnold was on earth again and was trying to get an 
army to walk all the way to Quebec, he could collect 
his patriots damn sudden! We’d all walk if we had 
282 











MAN ON THE BROAD HIGHWAY 283 


to! But it’s too slow, considering what’s waiting for 
us up there! It’s hard to count autos on account of 
the dust! But I did see one thing! Just a minute 
till I get this bottle open!” 

When the glasses were filled Member Mathison 
had something to say. 

“Toast! To all saying John Lang has run away, 
is dead or married! They’re damn liars! Drink 
hearty! Go ahead, Devon! Hope it doesn’t choke 
you!” 

“I don’t know why you should especially pick me 
out of the crowd here,” protested the lawyer sourly. 

“Oh, yes, you do!” insisted Member Mathison cheer¬ 
fully, in no condition to be perturbed by scowls. “I’m 
not saying John didn’t give you plenty of reason to 
make a lot of talk against him. We all know you’ve 
made it. But there’s been a different feeling growing 
among the boys since John was driven away by lies 
and slander. I helped to start the new feeling and I’m 
mighty glad to see it going so well. John wouldn’t 
be a man unless he had made his mistakes, just the 
same as the rest of us. I don’t know how it would 
seem to associate with angels—never did meet any! 
I like men who ain’t so blame perfect they make you 
ashamed of yourself. Fill up again! Toast! Here’s 
to giving John Lang the glad hand when he comes 
home!” 

“Say! Look here, Mathison!” suggested one of the 
group. “Suppose you let us in on this. Have you 
seen Lang? Do you mean to tell us that?” 

“You can see most anything on the road—coming 
from Quebec,” growled Devon. 

“You bet I have seen John Lang. Talked with him. 
Met him face to face and I stopped my car so sudden 
it turned somersaults and fetched up, headed the 


284 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


other way, toward Quebec. Instinct and homesick¬ 
ness! That’s the kind of a trained auto I own.” 

Then Mathison, having teased curiosity to the proper 
pitch, dropped banter. 

“Yes, I did see John, boys! When I tell you where 
I saw him, and what he was doing, you’re going to 
look big-eyed at me. But don’t any more of you tell 
me I’m lying—not even you, Larry Devon, no matter 
how hard it may be to swallow back words. 

“I was coming up the big road of the Chaudiere— 
headed home. I know John Lang as well as I know 
my own brother—but I looked into his face and I went 
on a half mile before I could make myself believe I 
had really seen him. Then I turned around and drove 
back. 

“Don’t blame me for not making sure of him at first 
sight, boys! Wait till I tell you! He was wearing a 
suit of clothes picked off the pile in some Canuck 
village. He was footing it along the dusty road. He 
was pushing a wheel chair with a little girl in it—a 
cripple. 

“Now don’t say it, Devon!” he warned, brandish¬ 
ing a monitory forefinger. “I’m convincing the boys, 
here, and I’m telling the truth! I talked with John. 
He introduced me to a party of everyday farmer folks 
going along with him; they were in a big wagon. I 
don’t remember their names. There was one girl who 
could coax me to let a Wop push me along on my 
hands, wheelbarrow style! They were bound for the 
shrine at Sainte Anne. 

“And he stood up straight and aimed his eyes at 
me steady as guns, and he says, ‘Jake, I suppose you’ll 
be making the Talisman Club along around tomorrow 
noon, if you keep going at the clip you were hitting 
when you went past me just now?’ 


MAN ON THE BROAD HIGHWAY 285 


“When I said my clip was about according to the 
schedule planned, he says, ‘As you happen to run up 
against the boys, tell ’em where you saw me, what I 
was doing and say I am having the best time of my 
life and will be back on the job, sooner or later, a new 
man!’ And, believe me, he put a devil of a lot of 
emphasis on the word ‘new.’ He looked at the blue¬ 
eyed girl when he said it! 

“Fill up again! Can’t use good stuff in a better 
cause! Here’s to John’s coming back! And here’s to 
the wonderful girl with the big blue eyes, whoever she 
may be!” 

Then Member Mathison squinted at the depleted 
bottle, decided it was not worth carrying away and 
departed breezily. 

Devon did not take part in the discussion of the 
strange news. He went into the grill alone and ordered 
his lunch. While waiting for it, he hurried to the 
telephone. He called the Trask mansion and gave 
his name and was able to get in touch with Mrs. 
Trask, herself. For some weeks, since the return to 
town of the mistress of the Double T from the North 
country, the law firm of Blake, Devon & Walsh had 
been attending to certain legal matters connected with 
the settlement of the estate. There were new compli¬ 
cations demanding prompt action by attorneys. 

Over the telephone he informed her of his desire to 
see her on a matter of business, and she granted him 
permission to call on her within an hour. 

He devoured his lunch with the air of a man who 
was too deeply absorbed in thought to take any inter¬ 
est in food. Devon had been guessing, and he had 
spent some money in securing information. 

His agent had trailed certain squatters of the North 
country after they had scattered to the four winds, 


286 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


following the affair of the conflagration which had 
swept over the Double T acres. 

He was not sure of having been able to winnow the 
truth from the lies. But, so the squatters asserted, 
they had been ordered to drive away a meddlesome old 
witchman. They said Anita Trask had given those 
commands. The story had become common property 
in the North country, and the Trask estate might be 
mulcted. 

Devon had been apprised that other land-owners, 
whose timber had been destroyed, were threatening 
to bring suit, under the law which permits damaged 
abutters to collect from an owner who has allowed 
fires to be set. But what was more vital information 
for the needs of Larry Devon was the description of 
the stranger who had held off the mob which attacked 
the man known as The Charmer of Angel Knob. The 
squatters had been explicit on that point. 

The lawyer was sure in his own mind that Anita 
Trask understood well enough who the stranger was— 
the man who had joined Ashael in flight and had been 
swallowed by the flaming forests. 

As opportunity offered, Devon had been studying 
Anita Trask, and estimating her situation since she 
had arrived in town from the North country. Her 
coming away had been flight, he was told. Not all the 
statements of the squatters found credence up there, 
but enough was believed to make the threats against 
her open and vicious. In the city she had become a 
recluse, except for the interviews she had granted her 
attorneys. 

Devon not only had guessed—he began to hope, at 
last! He was a bachelor, he was covetous. He was 
giving her time to recover from the shock of Lang’s 
disappearance—a matter about which all sorts of 


MAN ON THE BROAD HIGHWAY 287 


stories were afloat. The general belief was that his 
charred bones were somewhere in the region laid 
waste by the racing holocaust. 

Devon resolved to be the first to give her the news 
which Mathison had brought. As long as Devon had 
believed that Lang was dead he perceived an oppor¬ 
tunity which he might be able to grasp, eventually. 
Lang, alive, was manifestly allowing Anita to suffer 
on in her uncertainty; he was in the North country in 
the company of a handsome girl. 

Devon had been hoping for his success after Anita’s 
sorrow should be dead! Now he was hoping for 
quicker good fortune after he had been able to fan 
jealousy into life—making it so keen that her resent¬ 
ment would turn her from Lang to himself. There¬ 
fore, Devon rushed to her after his lunch. 

When she came into the room where he waited for 
her, he reflected sourly that though her black garb 
might be the conventional mourning for Serenus Trask, 
an unloved husband, her white face was a tribute to 
her fears or her despair in regard to John Lang. 

Devon had been wondering how long her nature 
would remain true to a man who had gone away, or 
who was dead. Some women were persistent fools 
on that point! But, so he was quite sure, all women 
were alike after they had been flouted and scorned. 

With malicious emphasis he told the news which 
Mathison had related at the club. She had seated her¬ 
self, showing the lassitude of hopeless woe, when he 
began to talk. But the instant she understood what 
his message was, she leaped up and beat her hands 
together, crying out to him, “It’s a lie!” 

“But it’s the solemn truth! He’s on the Chaudiere 
road, wheeling that chair, making slow work of it, 
so Mathison said—and Mathison can be depended on. 


288 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Lang is stringing out the job because he has that 
handsome girl with him. It’s plain enough what has 
happened.” 

He was glad when he noted the flush which now 
began to color her cheeks; he welcomed the new bril¬ 
liancy sparkling in her eyes. He talked more about 
the girl and of Lang’s enjoyment of the trip, elaborat¬ 
ing what Mathison had reported on the thing. 

Anita, not speaking, was transfigured. From the 
pallor of listless despair she flamed into the hues of 
fervid emotion. Devon told himself ihe had seen 
jealousy afire, before in his life, but nothing so lurid 
as that! 

He was tempted to take advantage of the situation 
and to put himself forward as a man who could give 
her the real devotion she deserved. She was saying 
nothing—she walked up and down the room and he 
waited for the outburst which would confirm his con¬ 
victions that he had done a good job. 

But when she turned and addressed Devon her tones 
were low and thrilling. “The man you speak of— 
when did he see John Lang?” 

“Yesterday, around about this time, I should say. 
It’s a straight road—he came right along.” 

“It’s wonderful news you have brought to me, Mr. 
Devon, this news that John Lang is safe and well. I 
thank you.” She spoke softly, but her suppressed 
emotion was visible. She paid no more attention to 
Devon. She rang and a servant promptly came. 

“Have my car brought to the door! Tell the driver 
we are going to Quebec! Send my maid!” With the 
air of one to whom moments were precious, she ran 
away, leaving Devon standing there. 

He waited in the room, thinking she would return. 
But when she came down the stairs she hurried across 


MAN ON THE BROAD HIGHWAY 289 


the hall and out to the car without a glance in Devon’s 
direction. 

After a few moments, he managed his gaping jaws, 
got his voice, swore hot oaths and kicked an ottoman. 
Then he rushed out to his cab, picked up a few 
belongings on his way to the railroad station and 
bought his reservation on the Canadian express. He 
intended to be in on the “grand wallop,” so his 
thoughts termed it, whatever it might be! 

Through the glare and the dust of the July afternoon, 
through cities and villages, across rivers and over 
hills, Anita’s car flashed on its way. All night, by the 
main highway winding through the wooded mountains 
which divide the Atlantic slope from the Laurentian 
valley, the tireless motor purred. In the dawn they 
crossed the line between the countries. They halted 
there only for the observance of the regulations of 
the customs posts. 

Anita had kept vigil through the night, making sure 
the driver did not doze, though he assured her he 
was not weary. 

When at last they came to the rolling farms and the 
villages of the broad Chaudiere valley and swept along 
the smooth turnpike, her eyes were wide, her lips 
apart and her pose was of strained intensity. 

She was on the watch for a man who was trundling 
a wheel chair in which a crippled child was riding. 
She was frenziedly seeking to solve a mystery which 
had been torturing her by visions at night and making 
hideous her waking fears by day. 

For she knew, to her anguish, that the flames which 
ravaged the North country and kept John Lang from 
keeping his solemn promise to come to her at Hagas, 
were as criminally her own responsibility as if she 
herself had set match to tinder. 


290 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


She had believed him dead! 

Devon had brought to her tidings more glorious in 
her case than annunciation by a herald angel. 

John Lang was alive! What he was doing mat¬ 
tered naught! 


CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO 
The Pilgrims in the Dust 


HE unalloyed joy of the child who rode in 
the wheel chair was the keynote for the 
harmony which attended on the pilgrims 
from Boisvert. In her circle so patheti¬ 
cally narrowed by her misfortune, she had 
seen only the little white houses, the river and the 
domed hills which penned in the limits of her village. 
“And I have always wondered what was behind the 
hills,” she confided to Lang. 

“So have I, every time I have looked up at them, 
no matter what hills they were.” He repeated to 
Jessie his well conned lines from Tennyson, his eyes 
studying Mavis’s face as they walked along. He 
dwelt with special tenderness on the words, “Through 
all the world she followed him.” 

For most of the way Mavis walked with Lang. 

It was a leisurely pilgrimage for which they had 
allowed plenty of time. Duncan wrapped the reins 
about the whipstock and lounged on the wagon seat 
and hummed songs. Old Joan rode in the wagon. 
She had brought hampers of food. They ate their 
lunches by the wayside, under the trees. Nights they 
lodged at little inns or at farmhouses where they were 
welcomed. 

During the heat of the day they rested; they 
travelled in the early, fresh mornings or in the cool 
dusk. They held humbly to the edge of the broad 
highway, leaving plenty of room for the tourists in 
the rushing motor cars. 












292 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


There were many others who went slowly—farmers 
and Canadian carters and vegetable venders bound 
for the open-air markets of Quebec. The pilgrims 
made friends among those who plodded, and the plight 
of the child in the wheel chair attracted much sympa¬ 
thetic interest. 

Beside the highway, here and there, were outdoor 
shrines, and the humble new friends o’ the road often 
went and knelt before the figures in the niches and 
offered honest prayers for the sake of the child. 

Jock Duncan ventured no comment on what he 
had been wont to term papist idolatry; he looked on 
and listened tolerantly. All this quest and journey of 
his little flock seemed to be for the child’s sake and 
he was in the mood to welcome aid of any sort. He 
constantly quizzed the Canadians, having a smatter¬ 
ing of their patois at his command, asking about the 
wonders alleged to have been wrought at the shrine 
of Sainte Anne. 

Every turn of the road, every house, every village 
developed new features of delight for Jessie. The 
lint-white locks fluttered, so quickly did she con¬ 
stantly turn her head, eagerly observing all objects 
in order that she might not miss anything. 

At one place there was a railroad crossing and they 
waited patiently until at last a train came clattering 
along the “chemin de fer” She had never seen such 
a spectacle, and she marvelled. 

“We’ll come back on the train of cars as far as the 
iron road will bring us,” Lang promised her. “But 
we must get all the good we can out of the pilgrimage, 
going on foot down to the shrine.” 

He was lingering with fond delay over the hours 
of their journey, passing them through his thoughts 
with the same reverent deliberateness displayed by 


THE PILGRIMS IN THE DUST 293 


those who knelt at the wayside shrines and told the 
beads of their rosaries. 

Often he found Mavis regarding him with an expres¬ 
sion whose meaning he could not fathom. He was 
not flattered; the expression certainly did not convey 
any sentiments of fondness. On the contrary, there 
seemed to be some sort of fear in her. One day, when 
they were nearing the river, he succumbed to the 
impulse to question her. She made no reply even 
when he pressed her earnestly. Her fear seemed to 
become more acute. 

“I have been grateful for the sunshine all the way,” 
he told her. “I have been more grateful for the 
happiness. But that happiness is clouded when you 
look at me as you do.” 

“I have only good thoughts for you—please under¬ 
stand that! But I’m growing to be afraid because my 
friendship may have led me to do something which 
will seem like going too far—and then you will not 
understand how I meant it.” 

“There’s nothing your friendship could do for me 
—absolutely nothing I wouldn’t heartily approve, 
Mavis.” After the first day of the pilgrimage he used 
her name frankly, without embarrassment. “And I 
have had every proof from you that you’re my kind, 
true friend. Tell me your trouble, and see how quickly 
I’ll laugh it away.” 

“I’ll tell you at Sainte Anne. I’ll dare tell you then 
because I’ll be obliged to tell you.” 

“If you’ll be obliged to tell me it will not be so very 
daring! I’d rather you’d do things, where I’m con¬ 
cerned, that haven’t any flavor of obligation about 
them.” 

“Not till Sainte Anne!” she insisted firmly. 

“It seems as though a great many wonderful events 


294 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


are looked for at Sainte Anne! Well, I’ll wait just 
as patiently as Jessie is waiting. I hope what you 
have to tell me will be my own personal blessing at 
the shrine. I’ll pray for jt.” 

She turned and left him with a swift excuse and went 
to the wagon, before he had time to note her pallor. 

“Child, have you any idea what it is your sister 
means to tell me?” he asked Jessie. 

“No, sir! And how about the promise you just 
made to her? If I didn’t love you so much I’d be 
telling her you don’t mean to keep your promises 
when you make ’em to her.” 

“I am well scolded!” he laughed. “And I impose 
sentence on myself, here and now. Yonder is a sign 
which tells me that a certain Madame Belliveau sells 
ice cream. Procession, halt!” He brought the ice 
cream out to them, along with some of Madame Belli- 
veau’s little cakes, and they ate under a wayside 
tree. 

It was there Anita Trask came upon Lang in her 
rush down the broad highway. He paid no attention 
to the limousine when it swung to the side of the 
road and stopped; he was teasing the child by pre¬ 
tending to rob her of her little cakes. He did not 
heed Anita even when she beckoned from the window 
of her car and called to him. 

But he did take note when Mavis spoke to him; 
he glanced up quickly at her, alarmed by her choking 
tone. When he saw her white face and the expression 
in her eyes he was thoroughly frightened. He started 
to go to her but she directed his attention with a 
gesture and he turned and saw Anita. But he promptly 
whirled about and faced Mavis again, filled with solici¬ 
tude in her behalf. He did not understand. He 
wondered what the girl of Boisvert could have heard 


THE PILGRIMS IN THE DUST 295 


about his association with Anita. He had never men¬ 
tioned the widow of Serenus Trask. 

“What is the trouble? What has happened, 
Mavis?” 

“I wanted to do something to help you—to help 
more. And now I’m afraid! I had no right to 
meddle.” 

She hurried away, and he stood in his tracks, star¬ 
ing at her. Then he was aware that Anita was calling 
his name over and over, sharply insistent. She was 
some distance away and was obliged to call loudly. 

He went to the side of her car and greeted her with 
cold politeness; his puzzled fears were so persistently 
engaged with Mavis’s strange demeanor that he was 
having hard work to take interest even in a visitation 
so astonishing as the arrival of Anita Trask! 

“You’re alive! I heard of it. I hurried here!” 

“Yes!” he returned, his tone noncommittal. 

“I know why you look at me that way. You believe 
the lies those wretches told about me that night on 
Angel Knob. I know what they said. I hunted some 
of them down and I lashed them with my whip for 
their lies.” 

“The matter is of no further importance to me, Mrs. 
Trask, one way or the other.” 

“But you were put in danger of your life and you 
have been thinking I was the cause.” 

“Will you pardon me when I say I have not been 
devoting any thought to you?” By stressed hostility 
of tone and manner he was doing his best to fend her 
off. He tried to barricade himself against her danger¬ 
ous hysteria of abandon. He was guarding the shrine 
in which he had placed Mavis. 

“But your looks show you are hating me for what 
you may have believed I did! I can read your mind! ” 


206 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“If you really could read my mind,” he returned 
mildly, “you would know I no longer have any hatred 
for any person in this world. I speak the truth!” 
He was convincing. 

“Why have you been hiding from me? What has 
happened to you?” 

“So much has happened I have no time to tell it 
now, and if I ever did tell it to you I’m afraid you 
would not understand.” 

“But you must tell me! Something, at any rate, 
John Lang! I demand it! I have the right to know! 
You promised to come to me. It was a pledge. It 
has been said of you that you never broke your 
pledge.” 

“I intended to keep my word to you, Mrs. Trask. 
I had started to come to you. I stopped for the night 
with Ashael—and at dawn I was to begin my journey 
to Hagas.” He was looking hard into her wavering 
eyes. “But in the night a raging conflagration drove 
me north—away from you.” 

“I know what you mean,” she insisted. However, 
the spirit was gone out of her. Her lips were trem¬ 
bling. “ But you told me you intended to stay on 
Borestone.” 

“And on Borestone, you’ll remember, I told you I 
intended to be honest with you! I’ll be honest, now, 
as we meet again. 

“I left Borestone suddenly because I was lonely 
there—because you had touched my heart—because I 
wanted to talk with you once more. But now— 
keeping straight on the track of honesty—I tell you 
I hope I may never see you again in this life. That’s 
brutal—but it may put you into a proper state of mind 
toward me. It will not be good for us to see each 
other again.” 


THE PILGRIMS IN THE DUST 297 


“Oh, God—my punishment!” she wailed. 

He was gentle with her. “I have been punished, 
too, by my own acts. It has been bitter business. 
But after the punishment, when one knows it has 
been deserved, the way back to peace is open. Under¬ 
stand, please, I’m talking only about myself! I have 
no intention of preaching to anybody else. I’m not 
fit to be a preacher.” 

She saw he was about to leave her; she reached 
swiftly and held him by the sleeve, the rough cloth 
of the toiler of the North country. “John Lang, there 
has never been any other man in this world who could 
talk good advice to me. I’d never let a man advise 
me. My whole soul told me I needed you. I’ll not 
allow you to leave me like this! I swear you shall 
not! Come with me! Talk to me!” 

“No, I cannot go with you. I have undertaken a 
task. I must go on with it.” 

“What kind of a task? What is it you’re doing? 
Think of it—an important man like you are in the 
world, going on foot in the dust and wheeling a little 
girl! ” 

“I am a very small—a very humble man these 
days, Mrs. Trask. I have no time for more talk. I 
must go on.” 

“Where? Where are you going?” 

“To the shrine of Sainte Anne de Beaupre.” 

“For what?” 

“I am taking that crippled child there, hoping for a 
blessing. I’ll admit I’m hoping for a blessing for 
myself.” 

“But it’s only for Catholics—I have heard of that 
place.” 

He smiled—there were patience and wistfulness in 
the smile. “As a lawyer I know that our human 


298 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


judges have no prejudices in regard to creeds when 
petitioners come before them. I certainly do not 
believe that the Eternal Judge of the Universe is less 
broad in His consideration of cases.” 

He bowed, took her hand and lifted it from his 
sleeve, then clasped it cordially. “I must say good 
bye!” He walked away. 

“No, it is not good bye, John Lang,” she called after 
him defiantly. “If there’s a place where there are 
blessings for everybody, I’m glad to know of it! I’ll 
go there, myself. I’ll be waiting for you at Sainte 
Anne.” 

She did not order her car to proceed; she sat and 
observed him with curiosity. 

He went straight to Mavis and gazed long into 
her troubled countenance. “You must not misunder¬ 
stand for a moment. Do you know who that is, 
yonder?” 

“It is—it is—I could not see her face, but she is 
-” she was not able to go on. 

“It is the widow of Serenus Trask, the rich man 
who owned the timber company known as the Double 
T. I was his attorney.” 

Her frank astonishment informed him that this 
information was real news. More than ever was he 
puzzled as he reflected on her demeanor when Anita 
had arrived and on the words Mavis had uttered. He 
ventured to ask some questions. But she would not 
answer them. Her expression of fear returned. “I’ll 
explain at Sainte Anne!” 

“Very well!” he agreed indulgently. “Everything is 
to be made clear for all of us at Sainte Anne, so it 
seems! Therefore, let’s hurry!” 

Again he started on with the wheel chair, and the 
slow wagon rumbled behind. After they had pro- 


THE PILGRIMS IN THE DUST 299 


ceeded for a little distance Anita’s car overtook them. 
It rolled slowly past and the mistress of the Double 
T, framed in the window, frankly stared at the girl 
who was walking at Lang’s side. 

Mavis returned the gaze. She perceived something 
outside the bounds of the conventional relations be¬ 
tween client and counsel. After the car had gone on, 
the girl cast glances at Lang as if she were hoping 
he would comment on the affair. His manner indi¬ 
cated that he was thinking deeply. 

“She is very beautiful,” suggested the girl. 

“Very, indeed!” 

“And she is very rich, is she?” There had been a 
long silence before she had ventured with this question. 

“Yes!” Then there was a longer silence. 

“I should think there would be many admirers!” 

“I know of none.” 

“I should like to hear a great deal about her. 
Won’t you tell me?” 

“It may be,” he drawled, with a perverse and rather 
childish suggestion of having been irritated by her 
tenacity in holding to her own secret, “that the matter 
will come up when hearts are generally opened at 
Sainte Anne. We need to wait only until day after 
tomorrow.” 

That was the afternoon of the twenty-fourth day of 
July, and they were near the end of the journey. 

In the dusk they crossed on the big ferry from Levis 
and, while the boat drove on, Jessie, raptly silent, 
wore the expression of a child who had arrived in 
wonderland. 

It was a calm night; the linked lights which were 
strung from the Lower Town to The Heights flashed 
against the soft gloom like jewels on black velvet and 
the reflections trembled in the swirling current of the 


300 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


great river. Faint and far, a band pulsed music for 
the pleasure of the promenaders on the Frontenac 
Terrace, and the majestic Chateau, with its lights, was 
like a fairy palace, so the marvelling child found it. 

They lodged for the night in humble quarters in 
The Lower Town and were on their way next morning 
at sunrise. 

Lang purposed to make two stages of the journey 
to Sainte Anne, down the river. He could not hurry 
because he was reserving one especial spectacle for 
Jessie’s eyes, keeping his plans from her. 

When at last they came to the edge of a great 
gorge and heard the thunder of falling waters, he 
lifted her in his arms and carried her to the cable car 
and they descended to the foot of the magnificent 
cataract of Montmorency. 

The pilgrims of Boisvert sat for a long hour and 
gazed up at the white flood which veiled the cliffs; 
they listened to the mighty monotone of tumbling 
waters. They uttered no words to each other. The 
child braided her trembling fingers with Lang’s, and 
he wondered at the thoughts which were behind those 
enthralled and earnest eyes. 

It might well be, he pondered, she was thinking, 
hopefully, that Nature’s God who had fashioned this 
tremendous work at which she stared could easily 
give strength to the stricken limbs of a poor little girl 
—and only a puny miracle this would be beside the 
miracle of Montmorency! 

One more night—the hither side of Sainte Anne— 
they lodged in a farmhouse whose whitewashed walls 
invited them to the cleanliness they found within¬ 
doors. 

Again in the early morning they went on their 
way, ahead of the flood of the pilgrims who would later 


THE PILGRIMS IN THE DUST 301 


crowd the narrow road between the rows of little 
houses. After a time, softened by distance, they 
heard the chimes of Sainte Anne, signalling her Feast 
Day, promising the beneficence of her especial bounty 
to those who should come and kneel in humility and 
faith. 

Lang kept his eyes from the child’s face, then. He 
could not endure an expression which had become 
veritable agony of hope. He walked on without speak¬ 
ing. A great sob was crowding in his throat and 
dammed back words. 

His eyes were not so well guarded. Every time he 
looked at Mavis and caught her responsive gaze, his 
tears welled and dripped frankly upon his cheeks. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE 
The Mystery of the Night 



N the night when the pilgrims from Bois¬ 
vert lodged humbly in Quebec’s Lower 
Town, the mistress of the Double T was 
installed grandly on The Heights in the 
city’s most palatial hotel. 

She had been defiant when she made her declara¬ 
tion to John Lang that all was not over between them. 
The spirit of defiance was persisting in her. She 
always had been able to assume such an attitude with 
men, even when she was merely a slip of a girl in the 
woods, meeting her first ardent wooers, her chin up¬ 
lifted, her narrowed eyes flashing her disdain, her lip 
curling with scorn—as naturally a protector of herself 
as one of the wild things of the forest would be, re¬ 
pelling an undesired mate. 

In the matter of Lang her mood was of a mixed 
quality. She was defying the conditions with which 
he had surrounded himself, because this impulse helped 
the new determination to win him for herself. 

She was proceeding according to the code of those 
materialists w r ho are convinced that nobody will think 
well of a person unless the person thinks extremely 
well of himself! She was putting herself into a con¬ 
dition of mind where she would be able to cope with 
this amazing, new personage whom she had overtaken 
on the Chaudiere highway. 

She was encouraged, being no keen analyst of the 
deeper mental qualities, by his new spirit of humility. 
In the back of her head she was patronizing this man 
302 









THE MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT 303 


whom she had seen trudging in the dust; she held 
to that last mental photograph of him, for her own 
stimulation of purpose. He was going through some 
sort of a period of folly and she was sure she would 
be able to make him see the way back to common 
sense. 

She knew she was the mistress of much wealth; she 
did not know how much—she had never asked! She 
was waiting for John Lang to tell her, desiring to share 
with him the joy of complete realization. 

She was not able to grasp the idea of great amounts 
—it would have meant little to her to know in detail 
her holdings and their totals. Money was for the day 
—what it would buy for the enjoyment of the day, 
the jewels to flash radiance into her admiring eyes, 
the comfort of attire and surroundings, the subservi¬ 
ence of underlings. 

Exploitation of wealth made her conscious of its 
value—of her own importance as its possessor. And 
if she were important, desirable, powerful, who was 
John Lang to deny her influence and repel her, when 
his mind and his natural desires were brought back to 
normal? In Anita’s judgment, being pretty much a 
pagan, a man who would persist in putting aside such 
love and riches as she could offer was merely suffer¬ 
ing from a mania, and it must be cured! 

Therefore, she nursed her mood of magnitude and 
catered to her sense of power and possession. She 
was glad because she had ordered her maid to pack 
several cases. 

A trail of lackeys followed her when she walked 
from her car into the hotel, each lackey with a case. 
She demanded the best suite available. She took no 
thought about what custom prescribed for a woman 
who had been recently widowed. She had been in 


304 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


mourning only for John Lang—and that period of 
mourning was over. 

Therefore, she attired herself for dinner in resplen¬ 
dent fashion, with the aid of a hotel maid, sorry be¬ 
cause she had not brought her own attendant from 
home. But it had been in her hopes that John Lang, 
at sight of her, would desert his folly of the dusty 
road. She wanted no maid to share the intimacy of 
the limousine. 

She dined in the public hall and was proud of the 
attention she attracted. But when she was back in 
her suite, alone, and had put off the rich garb and 
the jewels, and while she sat beside the window, 
looking out on the river and the lights and up into 
the starred heavens, she set herself to ponder on the 
manner of John Lang when he had last talked to her. 

At first, there was only a vague, undefinable uneasi¬ 
ness which hovered over her meditations. She had 
never bothered her head much with introspection or 
with reflection on the subtler incentives for human 
action. She had seen the visible objects of desire— 
had promptly desired, had reached out, had employed 
the beauty which is always powerful in the winning of 
the ordinary run of men, and had prevailed. 

But it was borne in on her that John Lang had been 
fortified this day by something against which she had 
thrown herself only to her own hurt. Her vague 
uneasiness grew swiftly into anguish of apprehension, 
as dull ache increases to lancinating pain. There was 
something deep, strange, compelling, which actuated 
men at times, and she did not understand it. . 

Her sense of power and confidence of ability in 
persuasion were slipping from her, in spite of all the 
efforts to assure herself. She clenched her fists and 
tried to put away such thoughts. She moaned when 


THE MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT 305 


other thoughts came to her. She had been able to 
keep them down in the past, when she had been dealing 
with only material matters—holding her mind on her 
desires and confident of her ability to proceed in 
accordance with those desires. 

What was this wall against which she was vainly 
beating—and what was the mystery of Sainte Anne— 
the thing that was calling John Lang to go on foot, 
wheeling a cripple in a chair? 

The next morning she adventured forth, seeking a 
solution. She did not call her limousine; she went in 
plain attire and walked to a railroad station to which 
her inquiries directed her. She alighted later from the 
train along with many other women and men. 

She beheld the twin towers of the basilica and went 
near enough to the door to hear the pulsing roll of 
organ music and the chant of voices. She did not 
enter. She had never been inside a church. She had 
heard lay preachers in the woods and they did not 
interest her. According to her notions, church ser¬ 
vices consisted of prosy talks about goodness, and most 
of the folks she had known went to church only for 
the looks of the thing. 

She strolled about the village of Sainte Anne, along 
the narrow board walks, past the little shops crowded 
close to the street, elbowing strangers and wondering 
what there was in the place to attract so many per¬ 
sons. She ate lunch in an inn where the linen was 
spotted and the dishes were nicked and the food 
was greasy. Constantly her depression of spirits, her 
sense of importance, went lower and lower. She 
walked slowly past many booths where folks were 
buying little images and crucifixes and other strange 
knickknacks. 

There was a great statue in the yard before the 


306 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


church—the statue of a woman who held a small 
child in her arms. Flanking the doors of the basilica 
were other statues in robes. She felt no interest in 
them. 

She did take a moment’s interest, however, in a 
man who was crouched at the gateway of the yard, 
a man with reddened, empty eyesockets. He was 
rattling a few Canadian coppers in a tin cup. She 
carelessly threw a bill into the cup. But the soft 
money made no sound and he did not thank her 
as he had thanked the others who dropped pennies 
and gave with them a word of sympathy. 

There was a hill up which whiplashed a broad 
gravel walk along terraces. By the side of the walk 
were groups of statuary, the figures molded in heroic 
size. She stood long in front of one of these groups 
and found it very dreadful, according to her way of 
thinking. A man with a savage countenance of bronze, 
an expression of malice hardened everlastingly into 
fierce determination, was driving a nail into the foot of 
a man who lay on a cross. 

After a while she came to a building where a broad 
stairway led directly up from a porch. Men and 
women and children were slowly climbing those stairs 
on their knees. She wondered what there was above 
to attract them, and she started to walk up. A 
cassocked priest halted her and told her politely she 
must go up on her knees. She would not do that, and 
she turned away and left the place. 

She saw many persons going into the church by 
way of the wide doors, but her prejudices against 
going to church persisted. 

Then she walked far into the places where the 
houses were fewer, along the road which led to Quebec. 
She sat for a long time beside a wayside trough where 


THE MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT 307 

the water came plashing down from the high hill. She 
was looking for a man to come along, wheeling a 
crippled girl in a chair. But when she took thought 
on distances, she realized he must still be far from 
Sainte Anne. 

There was nothing in the place for her—she was 
growing more lonely and heart-sick every moment. 

There was her grand suite in the big hotel! She 
wanted to go back to it—to recover her poise and her 
sense of power! 

However, when she arrived at the railroad station 
in the village, she remembered the supreme misery 
of her night thoughts in the hotel and was afraid to 
go back to the scene where those reflections would 
be revived. 

The afternoon had nearly dragged its length, and 
she found food in another inn and sat for a time in 
the tawdry parlor of the place, looking at the pictures 
of holy personages on the walls. 

In the twilight the chimes sent their slow melody 
over the village and the countryside. From the inn 
window she beheld a movement of the people in one 
direction and she went out and joined the throngs. 
While the chimes played, and the organ pealed, a long 
procession came out of the door of the church, and 
swung with slow and solemn tread and went up the 
walk along the terraces. There were many torches 
above the heads of the marchers. Constantly the 
cassocked priests, and the men who followed them, 
chanted. The slow pulsations of their voices echoed 
back and forth between the walls of the great church 
and the steep hillside. The smoke of the torches 
swirled up among the branches of the trees and the 
hill was veiled in a mystic shroud. 

Anita asked somebody what all this meant and she 


308 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


was told it was the solemn procession which made the 
stations of the cross on the night before the Feast 
Day of the good Sainte Anne. 

She began to be aware of an emotion that had 
never entered her soul before. It was something 
issuing from her anguished uncertainties of the night 
in the hotel on The Heights. 

She had never known there was any mystery in 
religion. She had merely viewed the outside of a 
matter which seemed to be reserved for folks who 
liked to listen to sermons or hear a choir sing hymns. 
Her emotions, if ever they had possessed any especial 
depth, had only been concerned with human affairs. 
But now she found herself swayed by new and 
strange and vivid agitations which she could not 
understand. 

When the slow procession returned and reentered 
the church, she followed. With John Lang in her 
thoughts, she was seeking what she had come to 
Sainte Anne to discover, if she could. 

Just inside the broad door there was a display of 
crutches and canes and all sorts of evidences of human 
infirmities. She saw a man add another crutch, 
thatching it with the rest; he went hobbling along up 
the aisle of the church. 

Anita sat down in a pew near the door. With wide 
eyes she stared steadfastly at the crutches and other 
melancholy gear which had served crippled humanity. 
The monument of woe bulked hugely and reached 
far up toward the roof of the church. A large center 
rod of iron supported metal circlets in which these 
grim votive offerings had been placed, stuffing each 
circlet to capacity. 

She did not understand the matter very well; the 
man who had recently added his crutch was now far 


THE MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT 309 


up the aisle, barely able to make his way by holding 
to the ends of the pews. Anita questioned a person 
beside her. 

“He is going to pray to the good saint for his healing. 
Fie is showing his faith by walking as best he can.” 

Then Anita rose and tiptoed around the sombre 
monument, touching some of the objects. She shud¬ 
dered. She had never been conscious of such a queer 
feeling before. A woods wiseacre had once talked to 
her about the strange sensation a human being has, 
stepping on earth which later is to cover that being 
after death. The remembrance flashed into her mind 
—she knew not why; she was not treading on soil! 

Nor did she understand the full significance of the 
great pile. Neither did she comprehend what the 
person had said about faith. Anita shook her head 
and sat down again in the pew. 

Splendidly illuminated, far up the nave near the 
marble rail of the chancel, loomed a replica of the 
statue which she had seen that day in the yard—the 
woman who held the infant in her arms. Jewels 
gleamed on the statue’s head. 

The organ, hidden from Anita, rolled great volumes 
of sound through the vast interior. Melodious voices 
chanted. Everlastingly people came and went. They 
bobbed at the entrances of the pews with respectful 
genuflections. Others passed into the arched entrances 
of the chapels which flanked the main body of the 
church. 

It was the night before the Feast Day. Pilgrims 
were constantly arriving. Train-loads were poured 
out at the station. 

All the forty confessional chapels were crowded; 
men and women were awaiting their turn. A priest 
mounted into the pulpit and solemnly dwelt upon the 


310 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


need of telling one’s sins to God through the inter¬ 
cession of a tender church and he rendered reverence 
to the saints who pitied those who had sinned through 
human weakness. 

Hour by hour, the girl who had never known the 
mystery of the Divine searching of the heart, sat 
there and listened. 

At midnight the confessionals were still crowded, 
the masses were going on. She saw all those thousands 
owning to their sins and coming away with faces 
calmed by peace or brightened by new hope. 

In the past she had seen other persons come out 
of the woods camp or from a wayside schoolhouse, of 
a Sunday, their countenances smoothed by the same 
contentment which marked these folks coming from 
the chapels of confession. 

What did it all mean? 

She ventured to put questions to a woman who 
knelt in the pew and was telling her beads. 

“I don’t know so as to explain. But God forgives 
all sinners through the saints and the blessed Mother. 
Ask the priest. He will tell you.” 

Something was awaking in Anita, creature of impulse 
who had been always a feather on the tide of strong 
emotion. The music of the organ, the chanting voices 
did not soothe her; the sounds stirred more deeply her 
longing for help from somebody—somehow—till that 
longing became agonizing. She had been depending 
on John Lang—he had refused to help her. 

She rose and went to a confessional but she had 
not the courage to kneel and appeal to the unseen. She 
wanted to look into somebody’s eyes when she told 
her story. Her spirituality was too benumbed to 
understand any other way of confessing. 

She did not dare remain longer in that place, the 


THE MYSTERY OF THE NIGHT 311 


influences of which seemed to be tearing the secrets 
from her soul. The feeling that she must tell some¬ 
body—ask help from somebody, had become an obses¬ 
sion which was forcing her to a state of hysteria. She 
was afraid she would leap upon the seat of the pew 
and cry aloud her appeal for help; in that throng there 
must be somebody who would know how to aid her. 
The feeling which had come over her was so new and 
strange that she had not provided weapons in her 
armory of self with which to resist it. She fled from 
the church and was amazed to note that dawn was 
gray in the eastern sky. Breathing the fresh air, she 
felt the relief of one who had escaped from danger and 
she was resolved to put the danger behind her. 

Therefore, she made hasty inquiry of a person whom 
she met in the village street. He told her there would 
not be any train for Quebec for many hours. She 
decided to walk; exertion, physically, might help to 
dull her sharp-edged thoughts. 

She was glad to be headed away from the place 
whose effect on her had been so mysterious—where 
her secrets had been imperilled. But, as she walked 
on, despondency overtook her and kept step with her. 
She had not found what those others had seemed to 
find at Sainte Anne; and she realized how bitterly she 
needed counsel and consolation. 

She knew she would not find those aids in her lonely 
suite in the grand hotel. There were no friends await¬ 
ing her there. The woman in the pew had said the 
saints were friends. However, Anita hurried on along 
the narrow road. There was danger back there where 
the words had been striving to rush out past the sobs 
in her throat. 

Borne to her ears on the morning breeze came the 
mellow clangor of the chimes of Sainte Anne. She 


312 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


strove to hurry faster, but she could not. They all 
had said it was back there where one could find peace! 

She stopped and listened and wavered. Then she 
turned and slowly retraced her steps. 

Advice—and counsel and consolation! 

Some mysterious power had broken down the strong 
resolution which till then had enabled her to keep 
certain thoughts tamed and in their allotted places in 
the dark cells of her conscience. She felt self-control 
leaving her. She was dominated by an influence 
against which she had no further will to fight. 

She remembered that once Serenus Trask had asked 
her if there ever had been insanity in her family. His 
query had followed on prolonged scrutiny of her after 
one of her fits of emotionalism provoked by some 
happening. 

She did not know anything about her family. Now 
she was wondering. Her temples throbbed. She 
wanted to shriek there in the morning silence of the 
countryside. The sound of bells—mere bells—had 
obliged her to turn and go toward them in spite of 
what, she considered, was a definite resolve to keep 
on to a place where she would never hear those 
chimes again. She shuddered when she remembered 
those confessionals and the men and women kneeling 
at the wickets and murmuring into unseen ears the 
recital of their sins. 

But she kept on toward Sainte Anne! 

Every little while she looked anxiously over her 
shoulder, seeking the expected coming of a man of 
much human wisdom, who was wheeling a crippled 
child in a chair. 

She was between the magnets of the mystic and the 
mortal; she was wondering whether it would be the 
mystic or the mortal which might render the aid she 
so cruelly needed. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR 
The Truth from the Eyes 



HAT morning peculiar constraint marked the 
manner of Mavis with Lang, and his mood 
matched her own. Knowing Anita, he did 
not permit himself to hope that she would 
not fulfill her implied threat, and he 
glanced up nervously whenever a motor car whirred 
past them on its way to Sainte Anne. 

Sight of her, and his approaching and inevitable 
return to that world of his former activities—a return 
already heralded by the declaration he had made to 
the clubman in the valley of the Chaudiere, was stir¬ 
ring into uncomfortable activity the self which had 
been John Lang! It was a self which jeered at this 
incredibly childish and superstitious thing the new 
John Lang was doing. It was insisting with diabolical 
plausibility that this new thing was merely a phase of 
the old, self-advertising instinct of the Lang who had 
sought selfish ease of mind and personal advancement 
by a show of generosity. 

Now, so he was honest enough to acknowledge, it 
had mocked the real thing. He wondered whether all 
his new impulse of tenderness and penance might come 
from the weakness of weary nerves and a blind man’s 
thoughts and paralyzing fears. 

Then, mentally canvassing all the reasons which 
had sent him faring in the open along the broad high¬ 
way, he was almost willing to cast aside all the casuis¬ 
try and admit, man-fashion, that the compelling motive 
of his action was the deepest motive of human life— 
313 










314 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


strong, earnest, self-effacing love of man for maid. 
In offering to help one who was dear to her, he realized 
that he had looked forward to these days of close com¬ 
panionship and levelling intimacy. 

Mavis walked silently, intent on the woman conflict 
that woke in her as she neared the place where she had 
promised to reveal her secret. Therefore, brooding 
and depression beclouded them within sight of the 
town and in hearing of those bells which should have 
lent poignancy to their joyful expectation. 

Jessie, sensitive to their mood, huddled in her 
chair, silent and wide-eyed. Even Jock Duncan was 
dour and silent that morning, wearing the air of a man 
who had allowed a will-o’-the-wisp to lead him, but 
who had set himself to carry through a fool’s errand. 

They were going down the long slope into the vil¬ 
lage of Sainte Anne when a woman rushed from the 
wayside and clutched at Lang’s arm, halting him. A 
woman so haggard from sleeplessness and fear, so 
dishevelled and dusty and distraught that it took his 
unready wits a few seconds to make sure this was 
really Anita Trask who beat on his breast with her 
clenched fists while she raved from command to 
accusation. 

“You planned it to get me here, you John Lang, you 
tool of the law! And their devilment has got me and 
pulled up into my throat all the words I had hidden— 
and they’re choking me—choking me, do you hear? 
Once you helped me to hold back the words. Now 
you’ve got to help me to get rid of them! You thought 
those clever ones would get me to talk with the rest of 
the fools who were doing that thing they call confess¬ 
ing—but I’m afraid, I’m afraid! Only I’ve got to get 
rid of these words in my throat and find peace again. 
You put an iron band around my throat—you did all 


THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 315 


the talking in the courtroom! Now you must take 
away that band! ” 

She bared her teeth and struggled with her fingers 
at an invisible circlet on her neck. “Fve got to feel 
the way those people felt last night—not afraid any 
more, not covering things any more! And you know 
how to help me, you know how to speak for people 
to get them free, and you shall do it for me—get me 
free again, do you hear? Else Fll-” 

He had protested earnestly during her vehemence. 
Now he gripped the hands which pummelled him and 
forced them to stillness while he strove to warn and 
quiet her by his steady look. When he broke in on 
her with a sharp command to be quiet till time and 
place were suitable she wrenched herself free, with 
a shrill, short cry of mounting hysteria. 

“Now —I tell you, now!” she raved. “I will not 
suffer like this. You worked on me to get me here, 
and you sent those hidden men to frighten me all 
through the dark, dark night. You want to be rid 
of me and get out of me what I owe to your law! IVe 
got to let you do it. I can’t stand any more. I can’t 
keep my head steady any more. Now I’m letting you 
do as you want to! You must do it now. Hear me 
and let me have my peace again or I’ll scream to all 
this town—I’ll run up and down the streets screaming 
about you and what you want of me! ” 

“Stop! Listen to me a moment!” Beyond all 
doubting Lang knew that this was no mere whirlwind 
of Anita’s temper, unstable though he found her nature 
in the past. This half-demented creature, worked 
upon by some impulse at whose whole scope he dared 
not guess, was bent on making a confession which he 
shrank from hearing, even though he felt there would 
be no surprise for him in what she had to say. 



316 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Crazed she was, to be sure, but in a flash of realiza¬ 
tion he perceived the working of the Great Law which 
he was beginning to understand—the Law which evil 
unwittingly invokes for its own undoing. He felt that 
he was a servant of that Law. 

“I will listen to what you have to say,” he assured 
her. “But you must come with me into the village to 
the proper place. Another must listen along with me. 
I’ll arrange it. If you are determined to speak out, it 
must be as the law provides.” 

With impulse to put a check on her speech he 
directed her attention to his companions whom she 
had been ignoring. “These friends-” 

“Friends?” She flashed a glance at them. 
“Thieves!” 

There was utter contempt in her tone. There was 
fury in her mien. She turned her back on the others. 
“These people all work together, you poor fool, to 
steal honest selves away and sell them to whatever it 
is that rules in this place and makes people afraid. 
They’ve worked on you, and you’re not yourself any 
more than I am myself. Do you dare tell me you’re 
the man I used to know? Don’t you know you are 
different, John Lang, and can you tell me what has 
changed you?” 

In the stress of the moment there was no utterance 
possible save the simple truth. “Admitting that you 
find a change in me, I can only tell you what started 
the change!” He did not intend to be cruel; he was 
in no mood to bare his soul before this distracted girl. 
But he felt she would understand, out of her knowledge 
of her plot with the squatters, the full significance of 
the rift between him and her. “I am changed by the 
words and example of the old man who was called 
Ashael.” 



THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 317 


“I knew it! I saw what he could do—and I hated 
him—hated him! He meant to put me away from 
you. It is his spell that’s making me say the words I 
don’t want to say. But he is too strong for me. I 
can’t fight any longer. Come—wherever it is we must 
go. Hurry, hurry!” 

Disregarding the others she caught at Lang’s arm 
and jerked him along with her for a few paces. With 
a reassuring nod to Mavis he pushed away the cling¬ 
ing hands, strode back to Jessie’s chair and grasped the 
handles again, calmly taking a pace which forced Anita 
to a normal gait. 

At first she repeatedly darted ahead, spurred by the 
thoughts which kept her whispering and glancing from 
side to side; then she came sidling back and remained 
close to him as they entered the main street of the 
thronged village. 

“About that old man—Ashael?” she questioned with 
crafty repression. “Do you believe the lies about me? 
Do you believe I told them to set that fire?” 

Over her shoulder, as she stood, he noted on a 
window the sign, “Raoul Grivois, Avocat”; and early 
though the hour was he saw a man at a desk inside. 
Lang went on, his face grim with distaste for what was 
before him to do. Anita repeated her question, her 
tone sharp with demand. 

“Ashael is gone,” he parried quietly, “and there 
will be words enough to speak without troubling his 
name in this matter. Be quite sure he would wish you 
no ill, and that he would bid you have no fear of him, 
whatever the manner of his taking had to do with 
you.” 

He talked on, doing his best to quiet her. “I feel 
sure of what I say. Even at the last he was calm— 
he had no reproaches. As I have told you, his words 


318 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


and his example urged me to make a test of the com¬ 
fort and philosophy in humility. So, I have taken 
this road. And the road ends here!” He halted with 
the subdued throng at the church itself, as he spoke, 
gesturing Jock Duncan to wait with the wagon; and 
turning the chair from the highway he wheeled it 
into the yard, close to the statue of Sainte Anne in the 
grassy park. 

“You and Jessie are safe here,” he assured Mavis, 
gently. “I will tell your father where to put up his 
horses, and then he will come to you. I will be back 
as soon as I have done what I must do for Mrs. 
Trask. You are not afraid?” His solicitude was 
profound; in her eyes there was a wistful dread which 
he was not able to interpret. 

Under his compassionate gaze her courage came 
back to her. “I am not afraid!” This was Mavis 
with her former poise; she looked up at him with 
clear and confident straightforwardness; and John 
Lang permitted himself one long second’s refreshment 
in the blessedness of her eyes before he turned away 
to guide Anita to the ordeal of Raoul Grivois, Avocat. 

That individual, a brown, gnome-like old-young 
man, looked over his shoulder at their entrance, pushed 
his chair back hastily and came forward with a pro¬ 
found salutation. 

“An honor—I am honored, Monsieur Lang!” 

“You.know me?” 

“When I was taking a special course in your city, 
Monsieur, I went to court always when you pleaded a 
case.” 

“Thank you! That you know me will make my 
business more easily done. This is Mrs. Trask.” 

The discreet Grivois permitted himself to see the 


THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 319 


evidently fearful woman for the first time; he made 
her welcome with a profound bow. 

“Mrs. Trask,” Lang proceeded, “is the widow of a 
former client of mine and she is—she desires-” 

Anita flung out her hands so suddenly that Grivois 
jumped. “I killed a man. That is why I am here— 
you! I am here to talk to your law and make peace 
with it. I killed Mack Templeton. I killed him. 
There!” She hurried on. “And I killed another man 
—I suppose your law would say that—though it was 
not as I killed the first. The second man was a 
fool-” 

“You will take down this statement, Attorney Gri¬ 
vois,” cut in Lang. The steadiness of his tone brought 
the dismayed avocat to himself and set him at his 
desk before pen and paper. 

Rapidly but with dreadful coherence Anita Trask 
told of the killing of Mack Templeton. 

“Then a fool came to me in my home that I had 
bought with blood and had given my soul for, and 
he kept saying to me, ‘Mack Templeton! Mack Tem¬ 
pleton !’ Kept saying it and threatening what more 
he had to tell, and how could I know he was only 
guessing? He had a revolver to hush me with, or 
to kill my husband with—I don’t know which. He 
was promising dreadful things! But I got my arms 
around him before he knew what I meant to do and I 
—the thing was done somehow. I don’t know how! 
It killed him—somehow I pulled the trigger. 

“And there was the old man Ashael! It was not 
with him as with the other! Only I hated him and 
was afraid; but I did not set the fire with my own 
hand. Only he is the one who wants me to tell every¬ 
thing,” she cried, her mania again overwhelming her. 




320 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


“And I want to get it over with—all of it—all— 
all-” 

With a quieting hand on her shoulder Lang checked 
her rising voice and sketched to the dumbfounded 
avocat the essentials of the confession, briefly and 
dispassionately. When Lang halted and devoted him¬ 
self to deep thought there was silence in the room until 
he went on. “In the affair of young Trask I am, 
morally, more to be blamed than this poor girl. Yet 
the law leaves me to work out my responsibility with¬ 
out interference.” 

“Oui —yes, Monsieur Lang,” stammered Grivois. 
“It is—it is—a sad business!” 

It was plain that Lang lacked words with which to 
express his own convictions on this point. 

He walked across the room; then he came back and 
faced the attorney. “This girl has been tried and set 
free on the Trask charge. Now you can understand, 
sir, the spirit in which I attempted her defense. I, 
myself, was on trial before Almighty God,” he de¬ 
clared with deep feeling, “while she was before the 
bar of human justice. As you and I understand, her 
life cannot be put in jeopardy again on that charge. 
As to Templeton, he was a renegade who forced this 
wife of his to the thing she did.” His voice broke 
when he cried, “My good Grivois, the boundaries of 
true justice lie wide outside the limits of our statute 
law!” 

Avocat Grivois gestured helplessly. 

Then the attorney set a chair at his desk. “It is 
true, Monsieur! But meantime—if Madame will be 
so kind—she is to sign here and make oath!” 

Anita grasped at the pen which he proffered with a 
bow; she signed with frantic haste. When she had 
cast the pen from her she waited, looking expectantly 


THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 321 


from one man to the other. The office clock ticked off 
ominous seconds. In the street outside the windows, 
the jostling throngs chattered and laughed. 

“Well-” her hand went to her throat and her 

roving eyes stayed on Lang at last, widening and grow¬ 
ing wild. “Where is my freedom for telling this? 
Where is my peace again? I have told the truth and 
all the truth. I have signed it before the law. I have 
looked into a face and spoken. But I am the same 
—and the whispering devils in me are the same. Have 
you lied to me? Is there some more to do? Is there 
somebody else to tell?” 

“Your peace will be given to you in good time, 
Anita,” Lang answered gravely; “but it is not a gift 
in the power of men.” 

Her grief-stricken wail was so keen and despairing 
that both men winced. “Where do I go for it, then?” 
She turned to the timid Grivois. “Is it only those in 
the church who know how to find the help? And how 
do they find it, and who will tell me? Is that where 
the old man is driving me? Is it in churches that 
the dead folks want us to make our peace with them? 
Then I will go there to them—I will tell this over again 
there—I have gone too far to stop now, and still the 
words choke me.” 

Before either man could move or lift a hand she had 
rushed to the door; she tore it open and was away, 
running. 

“She must not!” Grivois spun around in a circle, 
seeking his hat, straining toward the door. 

“She will go to the church,” Lang assured the law¬ 
yer with a certainty which stirred his own wonder. 
“Send a man—or go, yourself, to watch her, if you 
will, but let us show all the consideration we can. 



322 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


It may be—there is always a chance, you know, that 
she may find the peace she seeks.” 

Grivois crossed himself unobtrusively and began 
hastily to put away the papers before leaving the 
office. “As you say, Monsieur Lang, she may—and 
today of all days. You will come again later— 
when?” 

“After the Feast Day procession is over.” 

The crowd in the narrow street had settled to a 
slow-creeping mass, and automobiles were lined close 
to the board sidewalks as Lang stepped down from 
the notary’s office. 

There was no sign of Anita. So rapidly had moved 
the sequence of her coming and her confession, and 
so nightmarish the distress of her story and her danger, 
that when a gloved hand was thrust from a touring 
car to bar his way, he had a flicker of apprehension. 
He almost expected to behold Anita’s face, dispelling 
what seemed like a dream! He would not have been 
surprised to see her face, laughing and mischievous 
once more, as he remembered her fluctuating, fantastic 
moods. 

But Reba Donworth smiled at him, greeted him and 
quickly stepped from the car to join him. She nodded 
an apology to her friends, took his arm and led him 
away through the crush. She chatted composedly, her 
topic the picturesqueness of the occasion which had 
brought the throngs to the village of Beaupre. 

After a few rods a tree-shaded lane invited Lang’s 
volunteer guide and she led him off the street and 
halted him beneath a big willow. As he stopped in 
obedience to her pressure on his arm she stepped in 
front of him and threw her veil back over her hat. 

Her poise was perfect—he lacked self-control la¬ 
mentably. “The advantage is with me, John. I 


THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 323 


have surprised you. But I knew you would be here 
today. Is all well with you?” 

It was like her to face him squarely, like her to 
disdain the revealing strong light which showed unfa¬ 
miliar shadows faintly laid in under her eyes, and 
the delicately indicated threat of lines running from 
nose to mouth, betokening old pain and enduring cour¬ 
age. A handsome woman still; fit mate for a man at 
his finest, a woman capable of unusual determinations 
and their determined carrying-out. 

Once he had loved her by the standards of the man 
he then was. Now, giving full due to the splendid 
poise and grace and womanliness of her, he felt noth¬ 
ing save an all-masculine dread of her reason for seek¬ 
ing him; her declaration that she was seeking him had 
been frank. 

“How did you know you would find me at Sainte 
Anne?” 

At that she laughed delicately, but with such un¬ 
feigned amusement that John Lang blushed like a boy 
at his gaucherie and grinned back at her with a twinkle 
of shamefaced apology. 

She patted his arm with a friendly palm. “It’s all 
right, John! We’re simply agreed at last on a most 
essential fact. But it may set your final qualm at 
rest if I tell you something about myself, even though 
you won’t see at once why I tell you. Remembering 
what you said to me on one occasion in the way of 
certain permission as to my choice, what I have to 
tell you may comfort you. Some day—but in my own 
good time—I shall marry a man who is as strong as 
you are, so wise that he knows he needs my sort of 
woman to help him, and kind enough to take—what 
I have to give him and be content. I am beginning to 


324 WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 

hope I shall give him more than I now suspect I have 
to give.” 

She smiled into his wondering, questioning eyes. 

“May I know—is it simply a hazard of the future 
—is it-” 

“It’s a present reality—back there in yonder car 
with my friends, John.” 

“Thank God!” he blurted with a sincerity which 
stirred her amusement again. 

“Enough of me and my affairs! I came here to 
speak to you of this.” She opened her wrist bag, 
took out a travel-worn letter and put it into his hand, 
holding it there between both her own. “If you were 
not a changed John Lang you could not have inspired 
this letter, nor should I have travelled many miles to 
get it to you. But you are changed. I heard. Now 
I see! Tell me—do you want me to say I forgive, 
fully and freely, any unhappiness that may have come 
to me through you?” 

Lang clenched his free hand about the small ones 
that were holding his. “Reba, it’s one of the things 
I had set myself to work for-” 

“All forgiveness is yours, John! It’s the sort of 
gift that is a responsibility; and I have learned its 
value through suffering! I have learned, too, that only 
in giving do we get. This bit of paper between our 
palms is a token of that truth! It’s a wonder the 
holy flame of it doesn’t burn our hands! It’s my 
blessed privilege to give you this letter with its mes¬ 
sage of love; because only a woman who loves in full 
measure could write such a letter. You love her, 
don’t you, John?” 

“Mavis?” The question came from him almost in a 
cry. 

Reba nodded in full understanding, answered by his 




THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 325 


tone. “Yes—you love her! Never forget to tell 
her so. The gift of love is a tremendous thing to 
receive, also—the greatest to give! And so—this is 
good bye between us, John, my dear friend, and God 
bless you both!” 

What John Lang tried to stammer of protestation 
and gratitude he hardly knew, so choked he found 
himself with joy and wonder and humility. He stood 
in his tracks, allowing her to go on her way. 

“Oh, you women—you women!” he marvelled, 
watching the graceful figure pass along the dapplings 
of sun and shade. “You keep a key to heaven and 
the password to hell. The wonder is that you abuse 
your power so seldom.” 

He held his right hand, palm up, in blessing and 
farewell, as Reba turned to wave before she was lost 
in the throng. Then he was free to read the letter 
from Mavis! At the end he reverently pressed the 
paper to his lips. 

He read the letter once more while he stumbled up 
the lane, his groping feet serving instead of his eyes 
to direct his way; his eyes refused to leave the words 
with which Mavis had proved the greater love. 

Alternate light and shadow played across the paper 
as he walked under the trees, just as the mood of 
Mavis had changed in the writing of her renunciation; 
her sorrow had been lightened by the joy of sacrifice 
for the sake of the man she loved! 

Then a broader and a persistent shadow fell upon 
the paper. Lang looked up. He was gazing into the 
saturnine countenance of Larry Devon. 

As had been the case in the other meetings with 
persons concerned in the closely linked drama of the 
past months, Lang was conscious of no especial 
astonishment when he saw Devon in front of him. 


326 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Had Lang not accepted the village of Sainte Anne 
de Beaupre as the scene of the grand climacteric in 
his affairs? Why should not all the parties most vitally 
concerned be present on that day? 

Larry Devon was truly an important figure, in 
Lang’s estimation. To Devon of all others—the man 
whom he had insolently buffeted in public—Lang owed 
some sort of reparation, making of his convalescent 
conscience the most crucial test of all! He had been 
wondering if he were truly cleansed! Without analyz¬ 
ing the source of his all-enveloping joy of the moment, 
he was inexpressibly cheered by the feeling of wanting 
to hug Larry Devon! Therefore, the cure must truly 
be complete! Lang restrained himself to a radiant 
smile. He put out his hand. 

“Will you give me the grip of forgiveness, Larry?” 

“Not by a damned sight!” raged the astonished 
lawyer. 

“Well, Larry, that only hurts you , not me! You 
and I are too hard boiled to do any blubbering over 
what’s past and gone—I realize that! But I only 
wanted to give you a look at the new hand I’ve dealt 
to myself! Four aces, Larry! Unselfishness, so I 
hope—honesty of intent, forgiving faith in my fellows 
and humility!” 

“Huh! Well, you’ve got to have five cards in a 
poker hand! Which queen do you hold?” 

It was Larry Devon’s customary, caustic sarcasm. 
For an instant Lang flinched but he controlled him¬ 
self and smiled again; not fatuously but with the 
candor of honest joy. 

Devon went on acridly, “I’ve been standing on the 
sidelines today, watching you, Lang! You walked 
into this village with a pretty girl. Mathison brought 
down some news about that young lady!” 


THE TRUTH FROM THE EYES 327 


“I hoped he’d say something about her,” returned 
Lang gently. 

“He did—and, like a damned fool, I went and told 
Anita Trask!” rasped Devon. “She came chasing up 
here—and I’ve followed her. And you’ve been beau- 
ing her ’round today!” 

“She and I have finished all matters between us, 
for all time,” replied Lang, refusing to be provoked. 

“And just now I had to wait till Reba Donworth—” 

“That will be enough, Larry!” Lang’s gaze was 
direct, but there was none of the old belligerency in 
his manner. “This day I have come into a wonderful 
understanding with all my friends.” He stepped for¬ 
ward and laid his palms gently on Devon’s shoulders. 
“I’m placing you in the list of those friends, in spite 
of yourself! That’s all for now, old man! I have 
something of the greatest importance to attend to. 
Forgive my rushing away!” 

With his shoulders squared proudly, head erect and 
eyes triumphant, he strode to the maid of his heart 
where she waited at the foot of the statue of Sainte 
Anne; he gently had put away the myriads in his 
path without being aware that they were humans who 
gave place before him. The girl looked at him quickly, 
apprehensively, and whitened. 

She had marked his joy when he was at a distance. 
“Something—something pleasant—has it happened?” 
she asked. There was a pathetic upcurve of her lips— 
she meant the grimace for a smile. 

“Yes, something!” Then the conventions of the 
commonplace were swept away in the rush of his 
yearning. 

“Mavis! Mavis!” He gripped her hands in his, 
disregarding the ears and the eyes of the curious 
throng massed about them. “The love that desires, 


328 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


seeks selfishly, is common enough, but the love that 
steps aside for the greater happiness of the one be¬ 
loved is rare on this earth. Have I won that? I have 
seen the one to whom you wrote. When she read these 
words her true woman’s soul saw what you did not 
write on this paper. She knew what the letter meant 
and she guessed what it might mean to me. Just now 
she asked God to bless us—her last words before she 
went away to her own happiness. She was right, 
wasn’t she? Mavis, just for now, let me have some¬ 
thing to live on till we are by ourselves and I can show 
you how I welcome the glory that has come into my 
life—the glory of real love. Look at me—Mavis!” 

He knew that to his last day he would carry the 
sacred memory of the slow upward lift of her eyes— 
brave and appealing, pure and passionate, taking his 
breath with their revelation of utter surrender. Tears 
stung his own eyes and speech left him as he pressed 
her tight-held hands to his breast. Over their heads, 
over the hushed throngs, over the broad meadows and 
the sparkling river, the chimes were calling the devout 
to come and receive the blessing of La Bonne Sainte 
Anne. 


CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE 
A Glance Beyond the Rim 



HERE had been clouds in the night when 
the solemn procession had wound its way 
up the hillside, past the stations of the 
cross; the clouds had made a fitting pall 
for the ceremony of the penitential devo¬ 
tion. But for the glory of the Feast Day the clean 
heavens were blue and the sunshine sparkled through 
crystal air. 

Sainte Anne, in massive and sacred effigy, blessed 
the throngs from her station on high between the 
basilica’s twin towers. They who came up the river’s 
sunlit flood could see her from afar; they who streamed 
from the trains and who came along the highway gazed 
up at her reverently. 

The great crowd packed the church’s park, over¬ 
flowed into the street outside the gates, and people 
were tiered along the hillside under the trees. All 
sorts and conditions of humanity were there. Inside 
the church the procession was forming. The pilgrims 
from Boisvert, fortunate in being early arrivals, re¬ 
mained beside the statue in the yard; they had been 
told that the procession would pass close by along the 
gravelled walk. 

There were others who had been brought in wheel 
chairs; the respectful throngs parted and gave the 
sufferers passage to the edge of the walk where the 
hoped-for blessing would not be intercepted. Lang 
talked with some of these suppliants. Infirm old men 
and aged women said* they had been coming year after 
329 








330 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


year, on the Feast Day, and did not despair because 
they had not been made hale and whole. 

He saw two men who particularly attracted his 
attention; one was aged, with a white beard; the other 
was a young man whose eyes were sightless. They 
were robed in the fashion of Trappist monks—it was 
penitential garb especially donned for that day. 

Lang put some questions to the blind man when the 
two pilgrims took their stand near him. The young 
man said he had been coming there for a number of 
years and explained that his companion was his friend, 
a celebrated surgeon who had sought with all pro¬ 
fessional means to restore his sight but could not. 

“And do you hope to see again?” 

“Yes, I hope! ThaFs my comfort. I have faith. 
Without faith nothing can be accomplished. But for 
me the matter of seeing has at last become a small 
consideration since I have been coming here. I make 
my pilgrimage every year in order to hear the cries 
of joy from those who are healed. Those sounds stay 
with me for the whole year until I am allowed to come 
again. They make up a large part of my happiness.” 

“He will never see again,” confided the surgeon aside 
to Lang. “But he tells the truth about the joy of 
coming here. Look at his face!” The smile which 
wreathed the young man’s countenance marked his 
serene and comforted contentment with things as they 
were. 

After a time the great organ thundered behind the 
basilica’s fagade and the mighty volume of music 
rolled out through the open doors. In the church nave 
the slow chant of the canticle began, adagio, raised by 
a thousand voices of singers as yet invisible to those 
who stood without in the sunshine. 

Some of the more reverent who were near Lang 


A GLANCE BEYOND THE RIM 331 


sank to their knees, and he could hear their mutter- 
ings, “Prie pour nous! La Bonne Sainte Anne, prie 
pour nous!” There was a clutch at his throat. He 
pulled off his hat and crumpled it in his hands. 

The sunshine slanted across the ranks of vested 
priests who came from the gloom of the church, through 
the broad doorway, swinging to the slow movement 
of the sacred harmony. 

There were flashes of rich color from their robes. 
The sunshine glinted on holy vessels borne aloft, and 
on the tassels of banners. There came canopies, the 
bearers supporting the staffs of the corners, and under 
the canopies marched dignitaries of the church, their 
hands crossed upon their breasts or elevated in atti¬ 
tude of prayer. 

The sacred solemnity of centuries of human devo¬ 
tion in that little village at the foot of the Cote de 
Beaupre—the aura of holy thoughts and concentration 
—wrapped the scene and made for mystic tenderness 
and the stimulation of faith and new purpose. 

Out into the sunshine and along the broad walks 
of the park went the procession, swaying to the 
majestic tempo of the chant. Acolytes swung their 
censers and faint veils of smoke rose in the still air. 
Behind the ecclesiastical pomp of the vested priests 
and the dignitaries, behind the banners and the cano¬ 
pies, came the long ranks of the pilgrims who had been 
healed beforetimes and who visited Sainte Anne on 
her Feast Day to render grateful thanks for mercies. 

There was the Holy Relic of the saint, a bit of bone 
in a medallion—like a fleck of gray moss on its velvet 
bed. 

The Host—with its mystery! 

The ranks of the crowded thousands swayed and, 
section by section, they went down on their knees, 


332 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


with the effect of a grain field being swept by the 
stroke of a mighty scythe. 

Lang and Mavis and Joan—they knelt. 

Jock Duncan stood erect. His features were grimly 
set. He was smoothing emotion from his countenance 
by a mighty effort. He folded his arms and looked up 
into the sky, keeping sedulously from contemplation of 
the images of the procession’s pomp; it was as if 
he were saying by his pose, “There’s the one God. 
He is here, over all. I will worship Him.” 

The child, in her wheel chair, was between Lang 
and Mavis. 

All the tense expectancy had departed from Jessie’s 
face. Her lips were apart in wistful wonderment; 
there was no element of reality in all this, for her! The 
head with the lint-white locks swayed slowly, in time 
with the chanting voices. She had forgotten self and 
the infirmity which fettered her. 

For a time, when the procession moved, she could 
see tjfcily the great statue of the saint between the 
towers of the basilica, raised there above the heads 
of the men and women who were pressed about the 
chair. When the people knelt she could behold the 
rich treasures of the church under the moving canopies. 

“Pray, child!” whispered a withered old woman 
who was crouched just behind Mavis. “The Holy 
Relic is going past you.” 

A moment later Lang was holding his breath, steady¬ 
ing with both hands the wheel that was near him. 

The child was rising slowly. 

Mavis, frightened, was about to put out her hand 
to assist Jessie but Lang made a dissuading gesture. 
Jock Duncan, his steady gaze on the sky, did not 
behold. 

For a moment the child stood on her feet. Then 


A GLANCE BEYOND THE RIM 333 

she sank down slowly and made a pathetic little figure, 
crumpled on the turf, her head bowed on her clasped 
hands. 

They did not disturb her. 

The long procession passed and reentered the broad 
doorway and the chant was mellowed by the distances 
of the interior and the organ music died down into 
silence and the chimes announced that the great event 
of the Feast Day was over. 

But the child did not move. 

Mavis went to her and gently lifted Jessie’s head 
from the clasped hands. Lang nerved himself to see 
the tears of despairing grief. But when he looked into 
Jessie’s face he found a smile which greeted both him 
and Mavis and her father. 

“I stood!” she said in low, thrilling tones of joy. 
“Did you see me? I stood!” 

No one was able to make any reply to her. 

“I don’t feel as if I can stand now,” she went on. 
There was no trace of mournfulness or regret in her 
voice. “But I am happy! I did stand! Will you 
help me back to my chair?” 

Mavis and Lang lifted her between them. 

“I have dreamed of coming here so many times,” 
said the child. “I longed to come. I have wondered 
what would happen, and I have been very sad because 
I could not be taken here. I’ll tell you that much now, 
Papa Jock, because you have been so good. I thank 
you all. I shall never wonder and worry any more.” 

“But I’ve been praying to my God that ye could 
walk, lassie. And noo ye canna walk,” mourned Dun¬ 
can, the tears on his cheeks. 

“But I did stand!” insisted Jessie. “And it made 
me happy. I don’t need so very much to make me 
happy. If I never do walk I can never forget how 


334 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


good you all have been to me—and that will always 
make me happy. I’m ready to go home, now!” 

“There’s a blessing at this shrine that’s greater and 
more wonderful than being able to walk—and she 
found it,” said Lang to Mavis. He took her hand in 
his. “We have found it, too,” he declared earnestly. 

The young man who was without sight came to 
them, led by the surgeon. 

“Child, I have heard many utter thanksgiving,” he 
assured her, “but what you have said is the humblest, 
sweetest word of hope I have heard at Sainte Anne. I 
shall never forget it. It will brighten my darkness. 
And I believe—I know—that you have received a 
promise. You have stood on your feet. You will 
stand again, and walk and be strong; for God keeps 
His Word!” 

“ ‘First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in 
the ear,’ ” quoted the surgeon, his caressing hand on 
the child’s head. “Forget what you have heard us 
doctor men say, and expect the best—honestly expect 
it; with all your faith, dear child, hope—hope on!” 

“That we will!” said Jock Duncan huskily. 
“Amen!” 

With the child in their midst they were irresistibly 
caught in the throng that had begun to mill, with a 
mighty din of chattering, toward the gates, and they 
had been forced on a dozen paces when, cutting sharp 
and high through the babel, came a woman’s eerie out¬ 
cry. Struck in his tracks, John Lang turned and all 
the moving hundreds faced again to the wide door of 
the basilica. 

Anita Trask was framed there against the inner 
gloom, crying out so incoherently that her words were 
indistinct to him, though their import ran back to him, 
relayed by mouth to mouth from the front ranks. 


A GLANCE BEYOND THE RIM 335 


“A crazy woman ... she has been troubling the 
priests and the sisters . . . she says she must suffer 
. . . saints of mercy! Murder? ... is it murder 
she has done?” 

Lang caught some of her broken shrilling as he 
forged through the press toward her. She was wail¬ 
ing that she could not speak into the dark through a 
little hole—that some one must look her in the face 
and help her—help her; and she beat upon her breast 
and besought the very world. 

Lang saw Avocat Grivois foremost among the men 
who sought to restrain her, but with her innate and 
long-suspected madness now at its climacteric she 
fought off their hands, her outcry rising to a veritable 
shriek of agony. 

Within and without the church the masses pushed 
toward her, the front ranks driven off their footing 
by the pressure of the curious farther back. It was 
Avocat Grivois first, then John Lang, who saw the 
danger that threatened, and shouted—one stridently, 
the other in a roar of warning. 

The persons in the vortex near Anita were helpless 
against the thrust of those coming from behind. 

Just inside the church door, thatched in a heap 
a score of feet high, planted on the iron standard 
attached to an unsecured pedestal, were hundreds of 
crutches, trusses, canes and other aids for ailing bodies 
—votive offerings from devotees who had left them 
behind. The pedestal was joggled by the throng. 

From the top a crutch launched itself into the 
crowd, and the people, dodging, surged wildly. They 
were forced against the grim monument. The mass of 
crutches swayed and toppled; the men and women 
herded back on their companions, howling, “Les 
bequilles—les bequilles! Prenez gardeI” 


336 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


Hands were out-thrust in futile snatches at Anita 
who remained heedless of all save her own obsession. 
Then with a crash those impedimenta of human in¬ 
firmity piled over the distracted creature, burying 
her where she was pinned down by the iron standard. 

Leaping over the crutches that went scaling down 
the church steps into the sunshine, Lang reached her 
and lifted her while Grivois pried away the sticks 
above her. The surgeon-companion of the blind young 
man had hurried on the heels of Lang and was beside 
the rescuers when they laid the bruised body gently 
on the proffered wraps and coats which had been tossed 
to the floor of the vestibule. 

The skilled fingers searched deftly for a few 
moments; then the surgeon rose, stepped back with¬ 
out a word and gestured gravely to the Redemptorist 
sisters who had gathered to give aid. 

And the crowd melted away from the spot to which 
death had lent sanctity. 

It was Avocat Grivois, voluble and sympathetic, 
who gave what information was necessary and who 
saw to it that Lang was no more beset with questions 
than was unavoidable. 

Finally, it was Grivois, the discreet and observant, 
who in his comings and goings had seen, understood 
and had a pregnant suggestion to make to Lang who 
had remained in the church in conference with the 
Father Superior’s secretary. 

The nerve-wracked counsellor of the Trask estate 
followed Grivois into the sunshine. 

“Monsieur Lang, all has been done that may so 
far be done for the poor madame. I shall be at your 
call, while you remain here, to do all else that’s 
needed.” He ventured a bit of his philosophy. 
“While it is not for me to know, one is permitted to 


A GLANCE BEYOND THE RIM 337 


hope that because of her great need and suffering she 
has found the peace which she sought.” 

The avocat hesitated a moment—then he voiced 
that pregnant suggestion, glancing toward the statue 
in the park. “The friends with whom you came—I 
have seen to it that the little lame angel and the others 
are at their luncheon yonder in the arcade in com¬ 
fort—but it remains, Monsieur Lang, that Made¬ 
moiselle waits!” He bowed and walked away. 

Lang ran across the greensward and drew Mavis 
along with him—away from the arcade where many 
pilgrims were eating from their hampers. 

She was patient, tender, with an understanding of 
his mood. That blessed perception held her silent 
while he walked beside her for many minutes. There¬ 
fore, it was good for the soul of a penitent man because 
such a woman as Mavis had been waiting for him. 

By the broad gate, out into the street and past the 
little booths, they took their way. At the hillside 
chapel which housed the Scala Santa—the Holy Stairs 
—he shook off the morbid memories and turned to her 
with the smile his lips had learned for her alone. 
Still Mavis, not presuming to question his mood, waited 
his pleasure, tranquilly watching the devout pilgrims 
who ascended the steps on their knees to bow, at the 
top, before the representation of Jesus and Pilate— 
the humility which knew how vain the judgments of 
mortals. 

“Haven’t you questions to ask me, Mavis?” 

“None!” Her gaze, water-clear, soothed and 
quieted him like a draught from a pool in the woods. 

“You wonder among women! But, Mavis—you’ll 
have to take my past along with my future, and when 
I have told you that part which you deserve to know 
you’ll wonder whether or not I have been pretending 


338 


WHEN THE FIGHT BEGINS 


a lie, these weeks past, to win you. For I’m con¬ 
fessing to my soul that it has all been, for the most 
part, to win your love for me!” 

She reproached him gently. “It’s not that way, 
dear! I’m loving the true John Lang, that’s all! 
Because I can’t help loving you!” 

“Mavis, if this is the real John Lang at last, it 
was you who found and stirred my better self-” 

He paused; he looked bewildered, like one coming 
out from darkness into a flare of light. Mouth agape, 
eyes wide in amazement, he gasped, “My God! Why 
—why— that’s what love is!” 

Holding tightly to her hand, he stared into the 
heavens, murmuring, “Christ, pity the fools and the 
blind!” 

After a time he humbly confessed, “I learned much 
from the old man, Ashael—he set me on my way. But 
all the ghosts of a man’s nature are not laid in a 
matter of months. I have a fight before me—out 
there!” He waved his hand to indicate the rim of 
the hills along the southern horizon. “All the more 
do I need you! I’ll keep you from too much unhappi¬ 
ness on account of me. I give myself into your keep¬ 
ing, Mavis, my own girl! I have walked with you in 
the dust of the long highway—and I treasure every 
moment of that journey even as these folks on the 
stairs, telling their beads as they climb, treasure their 
rosaries. I’ve half a mind to go up those stairs on my 
knees with the rest of the Seekers. Anything to be 
else than the John Lang I used to be! Shall I do it?” 

“Together—if you wish it,” she made answer, 
mother-tender; his heart throbbed in his throat as 
he realized more fully with every word and look she 
gave him how he had found the true complement 
which made his nature whole and sane. 



A GLANCE BEYOND THE RIM 339 


“You girl-greatly-to-be-loved—Mavis, I’m still only 
a poor earth man—don’t leave me too far behind! 
Walk beside me still—as you walked down the Chau- 
diere—still side by side! Because—because I want 
the woman you are. I want my mate!” 

Now, no longer was John Lang making the test 
of human trustworthiness by cautious study of the 
eyes. Her eyes had long before completely assured 
him. But he yearned for another draught of that 
blessed promise she had given him when he came to 
her in the park of the church. “Mavis—look at me!” 

And because he bravely commanded, beseechingly, 
she looked at him . . . And after an immeasurable 
space the glory ceased blinding him and his heart 
took up its steady beat again. 

With impetuous tenderness he faced her about, 
away from the penitents who were dragging their slow 
way up the stairs glossed by many weary knees. 

He pointed to the quiet, tree-crowned heights cupped 
about the village of Sainte Anne. “Mavis, come with 
me up there—and so far as my soul is concerned I’ll be 
climbing on my knees up nearer—near enough to 
thank the Good Giver. I want my first kiss under 
God’s sky, with the honest trees for witnesses. Just 
for our one hour out of the world! Come with me!” 

Her hand reached for his and rested in his clasp— 
tender, clinging, trusting, ardent; and they turned to 
the hills. 


The End 




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